Crush
by Jaswinder
Summary: A year's passed since the final battle of the Gurren Brigade. Viral's having trouble adjusting to civilian life, and a restlessness he's never felt before is driving him mad. Viral x Yoko
1. Day 1

**Author's Notes:** My first TTGL fic. Check my profile for accompanying fanart, and the URL of my journal, where sometimes I post rough drafts of my crap.

* * *

_"Crew of the Chouginga Dai-Gurren docking in Hangar 3A. I repeat, Chouginga Dai-Gurren crew docking--"_

_THUD._

The welcoming party stumbled backwards as one. The hangar doors had been violently impacted from the other side. They opened with a shudder, and a rather rattled Attenborough spilled forward. Wild-eyed, with a torn uniform and cracked glasses, the gunner scrambled to his feet and plastered himself against a wall defensively.

"H-he's gone crazy!"

It soon became clear who 'he' was.

The new captain of the Chouginga Dai-Gurren was stalking towards them. His inhumanly large hands were balled into fists, and the one feline eye they could see was gleaming with fury and deadly intent. Viral zeroed in on the cowering Attenborough. Faster than any of the humans could react, the beastman grabbed hold of the scrawny gunner's uniform collar and lifted him several feet off the ground.

"You will fire _only_ when I directly and explicitly order you to, _monkey_," Viral's snarl exposed rows of serrated fangs, "If you get an itchy trigger-finger on my command again, I will _remove it._"

"Captain!"

Rossiu's voice rang against the metal halls of the hangar, and everyone parted to make way for the Supreme Commander. Viral's ear barely twitched in acknowledgment. He made no move to relinquish his trembling prey.

"_Captain,_" Rossiu repeated with a thin-lipped glower, "Regardless of rank, you have no right to manhandle your fellow crew mates."

The small crowd that had gathered around them started to give the Commander and the Captain a wide berth. Rossiu's handlers and the crewmen of the Chouginga both watched with cautious but curious silence.

The tension between the Supreme Commander and Viral had been obvious from the day Simon had left the two alone, but only in recent months had the beastman gotten _this_... unmanageable.

"I know you heard me, Viral," Rossiu's voice tightened, "Set Lt. Attenborough down."

Viral snorted dismissively and let go. Attenborough dropped, but quickly rebounded to his feet and fled beyond Viral's reach.

"He repeatedly disobeyed a direct order," Viral squared his shoulders and folded his arms. It was no accident that this pose accentuated the several inches of height he had over Rossiu. "Since words are obviously insufficient I decided to try another approach."

"Do I need to remind you, _Captain_, that this is not Genome's military? That kind of behavior won't be tolerated from anyone in my government, much less a former fugitive!"

"No need to remind me of that, _Commander_," Viral returned the snarled title, "It's painfully obvious to me that you are no Lord Genome."

Rossiu bristled. He intruded the beastman's personal space and dropped his voice to a more private volume.

"Listen to me, beastman -- I believe wholeheartedly that you deserve nothing more than to be back in that filthy prison I put you in the first time around. The only reason I have _not_ -- the only reason that you have the position that you have -- is at Simon's behest."

It was hard to keep a steady gaze into that cold golden orb. Something deep in Rossiu's instincts was convinced that the thing behind that eye could spring and devour him at any moment, and begged him to get away.

Viral's head slowly cocked to the side, and his snarl stretched into a bemused grin. He lowered his head to be level with the shorter human.

"What a coincidence," he hissed, "That's the same thing that keeps me from ripping out that pale throat of yours."

The growling, raspy edge of the beastman's otherwise silky voice made the hair on the back of the Commander's neck stand up. Still, he managed to gather his steely reserves and focus.

"If you're such a master of self-control, why are you lashing out at your underlings so easily lately?"

Viral's slightly pointed ears perked. Rossiu could tell he had ignited the beastman's rage from the way his lips twitched, fluttering over the interlocking rows of fangs. But the point must have hit home, because Viral soon pursed his lips closed and pulled back, narrowing his eyes.

"Needless to say, I'm not your biggest fan, Captain," Rossiu continued warily, "But if even I can tell that something's wrong with your behavior, maybe it's worth looking into."

"There's nothing wrong with me!" Viral asserted quickly, fangs and claws out and on display in an instant. Rossiu did not respond, letting the silence weigh heavily on the unusually defensive beastman.

"Then you'll have no problem visiting the nurse for a full physical exam. We need to keep track of any kind of mental or physical distress comes over our space-faring crews so we know how to keep them safe. If you won't do it for my orders, do it for the well-being of your crew."

Viral stared to argue, but Rossiu held up his hand sharply.

"This isn't up for discussion. Go now, before I have you escorted there by security."

Those fangs glistened again as Viral's face contorted into an awful inhuman snarl, but he still turned and stormed down the corridor, in the direction of the capitol's medical wing.

* * *

Viral paced around the examination room. The nurse had suggested in a small and trembling voice that he wait for the only physician qualified to examine beastmen. He would have left immediately if he had not heard the nurse click the lock on the door after she left.

Every minute that passed in idle silence tempted him to break the door down. At least it would distract him from Rossiu's observation.

Even the humans, imperceptive and dull-sensed as they were, were starting to notice.

For the past few months, an inexplicable slow-burn had been festering deep within him. It was mild at first, but as time went on it spread. It made his claws itch. It put a snarl in his voice even when he didn't intend one. He was starting to feel like a caged beast whenever he was inside, whether it on the deck of a massive star ship or here in this small, windowless examination room.

Granted, with his DNA being a genetic cocktail of dangerous predators, such behavior was almost expected of him. This was not a notion he liked to encourage, though. While he enjoyed a good fight or hunt, he preferred to think of himself as a reasonable, honorable creature far above the violent, unhygienic, and far more bestial mutants he had commanded back in the day.

Unfortunately, Rossiu was right. It was not like him to resort to violence against his subordinates. Thymilph had taught him better than that. The old ape who he had served under for so long had always lead through sheer intimidation and force of presence and personality. If you needed to resort to real aggression, you had failed.

Perhaps the most troubling thing about this needling, itching desire that made him so disagreeable as of late was that he had no idea what it was for. It was almost like he was constantly hoped up on adrenaline for a battle that never came.

Maybe he just couldn't adjust to peaceful life. After all, he was created to be a solider, and these sojourns into space were merely exploratory. He hadn't gotten into a ganmen in ages...

"Oh goodness," a familiar voice taunted, "I'm afraid your condition is chronic. There's no cure for being handsome!"

Viral bristled, jolted out of his thoughts. He turned sharply and saw Leeron leaning against the doorway. The flamboyant mechanic winked at him and smiled.

"I thought they were sending a _doctor_," Viral narrowed his eyes. This strange male never ceased to confuse and disturb him.

"Dear, I'm the head of the science department. We're still missing a lot of important data about your race. And we need to find out if you have some kind of terrible space sickness!" Leeron sauntered over, hooking a stethoscope around his neck, "Besides, you scare everyone else. Only I know you're really just an overgrown kitten."

Viral started to protest, but Leeron fearlessly reached over and tickled the almost imperceptible gills on the back of the beastman's neck, hidden by his mane of unruly long hair. Startled, Viral froze, and found himself relaxing into the feathery touch despite himself. His gills, fully functional though rarely used, were extremely sensitive and he didn't think anyone beyond Lord Genome knew they existed. He sat down on the examination table obediently when Leeron nudged him.

"See?" Leeron smiled impishly at the beastman who could do nothing but glare and swallow his purr, "Now, _strip._"

Viral jerked away from the mechanic at that suggestion, wide-eyed and appalled. Leeron just laughed, twirling the end of the stethoscope. "This isn't going to work through your shirt. That's all that needs to come off. I mean, unless you _want_ to go the full monty..."

Viral narrowed his eyes, but internally he bitterly acknowledged that fighting wasn't going to get him out of here any quicker. He growled and peeled off his uniform top, shaking his hair free.

"Oh my," Leeron blinked in surprise, tilting his head as he looked over the beastman's chest. "I was the one who did your initial physical, wasn't I?"

"_Yes_," Viral hissed hatefully. As if he could forget.

"Maybe my memory just isn't what it used to be, but for the life of me I can't recall _this_ being there before," Leeron set the tip of his pen on a tuft of golden hair sprouting between the beastman's pectoral muscles. A line of soft fuzz continued down the length of his abdomen, interrupted only by the occasional strip of thick scar tissue.

Leeron circled around Viral, raising his eyebrows at the beastman's back. "I don't remember this either."

He ran that same pen over a bristly segment of wiry yellow hair that ran along Viral's spine -- literal hackles. They rose in irritation.

"Stop prodding me and get this over with," Viral grunted.

Leeron was far too amused. "Don't tell me you grow a winter coat, that would be intolerably adorable. Are you going to turn into a big yellow fluffball?"

"No!" Viral snapped, "I don't know why that's there!"

"So it just grew in all of the sudden?"

Viral nodded sharply.

"Intriguing," Leeron scribbled some notes onto a clipboard, then stuck the stethoscope to Viral's chest. "Have any other weird symptoms you've kept to yourself?"

Viral tightened and set his jaw. None that he was going to _tell_ anyone about.

Leeron continued his examination, _hmming_ thoughtfully the entire time, collecting tissue samples and occasionally noting something on his clipboard. The fact that the normally chatty mechanic was so quiet was slightly offsetting.

"Well," he finally spoke up, "You seem to be the picture of health. How do you feel?"

"Fine! I don't even know why I'm here!"

"Yes, yes, the big manly man never feels anything, you're quite macho," Leeron sighed, "Now, how about the truth?"

Viral's lip twitched, but he closed his eyes and searched for a way to quantify what had been bothering him for so many weeks.

"I have too much... too much energy. There's this humming in my head. I want to use my claws on something. I want to tear off Rossiu's head."

"Oh, honey, we _all_ get that one," Leeon smirked as he added this to his notes. "Do continue."

"My patience is not what it used to be. I want to fight with everyone I see. Everything's too peaceful here. Living amongst humans is so _boring_. With beastmen, everything was a power struggle. We communicated with our teeth and fists and snarls. That's how we established rank. But humans refuse to express anger. Everything has to be _agreeable_ and _professional_," Viral muttered, echoing words from some of the lectures Rossiu had given him in the past.

"It's hard to adjust to civilian life after being a solider for so long, isn't it?" Leeron frowned sympathetically, "Even us humans feel that way sometimes. I think that's why Simon left the way he did."

"He had the right idea," Viral shook his head. "I don't want to be a stupid violent brute. I see certain humans and even other beastmen sometimes and I just want to... I don't know. It's indescribable. It's _maddening_."

"Want to what?"

"...Touch them."

Leeron's quizzical brow implored him to continue.

"I don't know how else to explain it. It's like I want to attack them, but I'm not angry. I don't wish to harm them. I just want to smell them, especially the females..."

"...uh _huh_. You've never had this little problem before?"

"No, never. I never especially noticed what someone looked like unless I was fighting them, and then it was only to see if they were broadcasting their next move. But now... I find myself staring for no reason. Like they were prey. It makes it difficult to concentrate on anything."

The extended silence that followed was irritating enough that Viral stood up and pulled his shirt back on, prepared to leave.

Leeron sighed and patted his shoulder. "I have some theories, but it'll take a while for the test results to get back, so let's not worry about it till then. In the meantime..."

He scrawled out some text on a piece of paper, then stuck the note to Viral's chest. "I prescribe a vacation."

"Vacation?"

"You know. Take a break. Go off someplace fun and kick back. Get rid of some of that stress. Whatever floats your boat." Leeron smiled and opened the door for the tall blond, waving him off. "If Rossiu has a fit about it, just send him to me."

Viral furrowed his brow uncertainly. He was no less confused than he had been earlier, but one of those vacations sounded awfully tempting.

"Ta-ta!"

The beastman grunted and made no move to return Leeron's cheerful wave as he stalked out of the examination room.


	2. Day 2

He should have taken one of these 'vacations' _years_ ago.

The last time Viral had been out in the wilderness was when he lived as a ragged wanderer. He had gotten so caught up in fighting alongside the humans and falling back into the old, comfortable role of a soldier that he had completely forgotten the immense freedom of being alone in the wild.

The beastman found a small but ecologically rich island not far from the city. Piloting a Grapearl unit that was cold and unfamiliar made him miss Enkidu, so he had abandoned it at the shore and ventured out into the wilds with only his old blade and a small knapsack of supplies.

He was almost a day into his outing, and he was starting to get hungry. His stalking and tracking skills were a little rusty, but he managed to locate a young grape-hippo isolated from its fellows by a river bank. Viral watched it from a thick patch of reeds. Keen to indulge his restless instincts, he set his weapons aside for this one.

His claws flexed and dug deep into the moist soil as he crouched. The stupid hippo was wandering closer and closer. It stopped to dip its muzzle in the water, leaving it ulnerable.

Viral exploded out of the reeds in a spray of mud and cat-tails, aiming to down the hippo with a flying tackle.

_CRACK._

The deafening gunshot felt like it went directly through Viral's head. He crashed into the shore and tumbled, landing in a dazed sprawl. He noticed the hippo running away and grunted, trying to hop to his feet to chase it, but his body was being uncooperative. It felt like he'd been punched in the side, hard.

He glanced down and blinked. There was a bloody crater in his side, tattered and gun-powder blackened edges of his shirt sticking to the wound. Soaked blood was creeping up the fabric.

That could be a problem.

Sudden weariness made him set his head down on the bank.

"Oh my god, Viral!"

_Sounds familiar. Is that..._

He was unconscious before he could verify his theory.

* * *

The first thing Viral noticed was the smell.

Blood, mud, cloth, antiseptic, all stuffy and thick like he was in some small, poorly circulated room. It was warm and everything in him was sore.

There was another scent, one he couldn't quite identify.

He was tempted to ignore it and drift back to sleep, but a feathery touch on his sore -- and bare, he realized -- side jolted him fully awake. He growled softly and lifted his head, and the light fingers froze.

Two sets of golden eyes blinked curiously at each other.

Yoko was kneeling beside him, with a small pile of rags, a bottle of alcohol, and his bloodied shirt shorn neatly into pieces.

"I don't get it," she started, looking down at the area his wound _should_ have been, "It's only been a few hours, but you're almost completely healed. There's no sign that .33 caliber slug ever hit you."

He snorted and sat up wearily, forcing back his grimace. "It's a talent of mine."

"...Sorry. I didn't mean to hit you. You jumped out of nowhere right when I took my shot and -- I thought I'd killed you." Yoko frowned, glancing away guiltily.

"Luckily for you, I'm built better than you monkeys," Viral sneered slightly, but any maliciousness in his voice was tepid. It bled away completely when he noticed that she looked genuinely upset.

They were in a small tent, obviously meant for one, so it was somewhat cramped. Yoko was sitting half outside, looking at the ocean in the horizon. She was wearing a leather jacket with a thin, clingy black top, and long khaki pants. The cool autumn weather must have driven her to more conservative dress.

He barely knew her, even if his first encounter with her was a turning point in his life. When Cytomander took her hostage, he saw her there, a lot smaller and farther away than she was now, and could not bring himself to attack an opponent bound only by loyalty to his friend. He wanted a fair fight.

Then, years later, she had broken him and Simon out of prison. He fought across galaxies beside her and the dozen or so other core members of the Great Gurren Brigade. As fearsome as she was in battle, and as strong-willed as she could be, she was normally quiet and reserved and Viral had never particularly noticed her.

So, possibly...

Yoko yelped and jerked herself out of the tent, rubbing her neck furiously where Viral's nose and hot breath had tickled her skin. She glared at him, bewildered and red in the face. He scowled.

"I was just trying to see if you were that odd smell."

She balled her fists. "Are you saying I stink?! You're one to talk, you're covered in mud!"

"Because someone shot me," he growled coolly, "I forgot what pitiful senses humans had. You wouldn't understand."

Yoko bit her lip and scowled venomously. "I said it was an accident! What were you doing out here, anyway?"

"What were _you?_"

"I live here! ...well. I live on another part of this island."

"Heh. So this is where you went." Viral slid out of the tent slowly, standing and stretching his neck. He was still sore as hell, but he wasn't about to let her know that. "I am on a... _vacation_."

"I guess I am too. Coming out here to wild part of the island is a nice way to spend the weekend."

The sun was starting to set over the mountains in the distance. A chilled wind tossed their hair.

"Where did you get all of those scars?"

Viral glanced down. Yoko was still sitting just outside the tent, looking up at him curiously. Not at his face, either.

She caught herself and tried to shrug off her sudden awkwardness. "Uh... sorry. I cut off your shirt because I was going to treat your wound and I noticed them. They're all over the place. You must've had it pretty rough."

"So to speak," Viral set his massive hand on his chest, pointing to the X-shaped scar that lanced his chest and collar bone, "Some were from my training. Some were from my commanders. Some were from _you_ and your friends."

Yoko blinked, then turned her head away with a sad smile.

"I think we all have some scars from that time."

Viral's head tilted slightly. All of the humans he had dealt with would have taken that casual swipe as a challenge. He could even get a rise out of the Rossiu sometimes. What made her different?

...oh.

All of his life, he had been surrounded by other males. Female beastmen were few and far between -- besides, Adiane had been more frightening than any man he'd ever known -- and human females were equally rare in the military position he found himself in now. Even their scent was strange and unfamiliar to him.

He crouched down beside her.

She was still looking away, so he was free to study her features. Her face looked soft. So did her wine-colored hair.

His claws itched. Not the way they yearned to maul an enemy, not to heft his cleaver, not even to grab hold of a ganmen's steering rod and lead it into ruthless combat.

Curiosity got the better of him, and the tips of his gnarled, thick fingers grazed one of the red sidelocks of hair hanging behind her ear. He was stealthy, but his oversized hands were hardly nimble. Rough skin brushed against Yoko's cheek and caused her to start.

Viral yanked his hand back as soon as she jerked and bristled, quietly mortified. He pretended to be interested in something in the distance as Yoko gave him a puzzled look.

"Is your campsite nearby?" She finally broke the silence, "It's going to get cold tonight, you can't stay like... that."

"I'll be fine." Viral stood up swiftly, "Like I said, I'm a lot tougher than--"

His sudden movement ripped open the delicate, newly-healed skin over his wound. Viral made a strangled sound and slapped his broad hand over the wound, fresh blood dribbling between his fingers.

"I knew you couldn't heal that fast!" Yoko jumped up and hooked her arm around him, guiding him back down into the tent.

"I can," he hissed between his teeth, but was too distracted by pain to do anything but comply. "You don't need to interfere!"

"Too bad," Yoko sat behind him in the tent and pried his bloodied hand away from his wound,

"Ugh... there's still gunpowder residue in there, and I don't think the bullet ever came out either. It's already getting infected. Hold still, this might sting a little."

The air was suddenly flooded with the burning scent of alcohol, and Viral saw her pouring it onto a cloth out of the corner of his eye. Without further warning, she started it running it around the area of the wound. At first, it was merely cold, and Viral wondered what the hell she was talking about, but then she gingerly daubed it over the raw flesh and gore.

"I think I see the slug. Let me just..."

The howling shriek that came out of him was far from human. She cried out sharply along with him and froze, and after the pain subsided, Viral grimaced and realized what he'd done.

In the throe of shocked agony he had dug his claws into her hip and dragged them upwards. They had gone clear through the fabric of the khakis and left deep trenches in her flesh. She was pressing into his back, her face buried in his hair. Her breathing was pained.

Viral swallowed and carefully flexed his claws, dislodging them from her flesh. She whimpered at the slight jerk, and he felt something in his chest sink. "Yoko, I didn't... gh..."

"It... i-it's okay." She shook her head slowly against the back of his neck, "I guess it makes us even."

She recovered enough to finish dislodging the bullet and cleaning his wound, and he was cowed by shame into sitting still. He couldn't help but look down at the guilty hand. Her blood was still staining the groves of his claw, gathering around his cuticles. It was hardly the first time human blood was on his hands, but it was the first time he felt so damn _bad_ about it.

Without warning, he pulled away from her and turned around.

"Viral, you can't keep moving around like that, you're going to _aiiegh!"_

Viral had ripped off her pants.

Well, half of them, anyway, grabbing the fabric by the holes his claws had already put into it earlier and tearing with all his might. He managed to catch a seam and separate the pants-leg from the waist of the khakis raggedly. Viral threw the bloody canvas fabric aside and took her leg, trying to better examine the wounds.

Yoko couldn't do much but stare at him, horrified. "Y-you could ask me before you do that, you know!"

Viral snorted. "Lean on your other leg."

Though ruffled, she complied. Viral's hands were large enough that his palms could span one side of her thigh almost completely, and to her agitation, he wasn't shy about using them to manipulate her leg.

But his focus was entirely on her wounds, so he took no notice of her uncomfortable frowns. He took a clean rag and wiped away the blood.

"That alcohol... You use it as a disinfectant, correct?"

She nodded, and he added some of that to his rag. To his chagrin, she took the cold stinging sensation far better than he did, just quietly wrenching her face.

He had dressed many wounds in his years as a soldier, both his own and, occasionally, those of his subordinates. So it was with a practiced hand that he neatly shredded the khaki pant leg he had torn off, dividing it into long strips to wind around her leg as bandages.

"That should hold until I can get some real supplies." Viral lifted his head to look her in the eye. He hadn't realized how close he was to her face. They were sharing the same air.

Viral froze. He wasn't sure if he had _ever_ been this close to a human before, even when he was slaughtering them. That was usually done from afar, with Enki's deadly force. It was a secret shame of his that he had never quite been able to bring himself to kill them in person unless it was in self defense.

Up close, they reminded him far too much of himself.

Especially now. He'd never seen a human with golden eyes before. Maybe it was egocentric, but he found them rather fetching.

"Um," Yoko started, blinking at him warily. "I think that's enough wrapping."

His hands had idly continued winding the fabric around her leg as he had admired her face. Flinching back to awareness, he nodded and quickly finished up the bandaging, pulling back as soon as he could.

"Sorry about your pants," Viral muttered, looking down at his own, "I can give you mine if you want. I can tolerate the cold far better."

"T-t-that's _fine_," she waved her hands and shook her head, "I'll deal."

He didn't understand why her face had contorted into such a disturbed look. Humans were confusing.

Viral glanced outside; it was night now, the last traces of the sunset fading over distant mountains.

"I'll stay."

Yoko looked up from fiddling with her bandages. "What?"

"I'll stay with you. You're not going to be able to hunt or defend yourself with that leg, and it's my fault."

She stared at the back of his head since he was still looking outside, away from her. Yoko shifted uncertainly. She didn't want to admit that she couldn't still hold her own, but he had a point.

"Okay... It'll be kind of cramped in here, but..."

"I'll sleep outside."

"N-no!" Yoko grimaced. That came out a little too quickly. "I mean, you're hurt too. There's enough room."

To prove her point, she scooted over to the far side of the tent and pulled a tightly folded, thin blanket out of her bag of supplies. He turned his head and watched her with a blank stare.

A lifetime of combat training and experience had taught him that the primary -- and usually, the only -- reason to ever get within five feet of another living being was to kill or be killed. His muscles tensed and his skin crawled whenever someone invaded his personal space. He had to force back the reflexes in his claws at every bump and brush. But for some reason unfathomable to him, he didn't reject her invitation.

Carefully, he slid back into the tent beside her. Despite his maneuvering, their sides were against one another. Unable to do anything else with his massive arms, he awkwardly folded them behind his head and laid back uncomfortably. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up. Claustrophobic tension was pulling his muscles taut.

It was bad enough that he almost didn't notice Yoko frowning down at him, still sitting up by his side. "You don't look too happy."

Viral took a deep breath. "I'm not... used to being this... near someone."

Yoko smiled distantly. "Truth be told, I'm not either. But you refuse to leave and I refuse to let you freeze outside, so we're stuck here, aren't we."

She laid down beside him, her long hair pooling around his elbow. The crown of her head rested against his arm; there was no other place for it to go. Viral was certain that even her weak human ears could hear his accelerated heartbeat, though he didn't understand why it wasn't accompanied by the usual indignation and violent impulses. In their place was a strange tingling thrill, not unlike the high he got from fighting or hunting.

He laid there, fixating his stare on the tent walls. It didn't help much. He could still feel her hair tickling his skin and hear her every quiet breath. Her warm scent was the only thing he could smell.

Viral was starting to understand the strange control she seemed to exert over her male colleagues. It wasn't fear, the way Adiane had bulled her way through her subordinates... hell, Yoko didn't even seem to be aware of her own abilities.

He flexed his toes. No, it wasn't fear bothering him. It was frustration, self-consciousness and some strange hot craving he'd never known until the past few weeks. Eating, drinking, fighting, exercise, killing -- nothing slaked it, and it was getting worse in her presence.

A warm weight leaned into his side. He had spent so long ruminating that he hadn't realized the source of his angst had fallen asleep. She was almost resting in the crook of his arm, and he felt her shiver faintly when a cool wind blew in through the tent opening.

The thin blanket she had brought was warm enough if doubled over. He immediately relinquished the side she had given him and tried to arrange it over her without disturbing her. The gesture left him turned on his side, facing her.

Viral gave into the desire he couldn't understand and settled against her that way, cradling her head onto his shoulder and draping his arm across her stomach. Now he could bury his nose into her hair and enjoy her strange, intoxicating scent without getting in trouble.

Oddly enough, having the human leaning against him made the tension ebb. Her body heat seemed to chase it away and leave something very pleasant in its wake.

He was content.


	3. Day 3

Yoko woke up to thanks to a strange rumbling sensation tickling her ear.

That, and she was warm. Far warmer than she should've been in the crisp autumn morning air.

As she blinked the grogginess out of her eyes, she became aware of a few other things. A heavy, misshapen arm was draped over her abdomen, and she was using another one as a pillow. Judging from the dark, gnarled skin and claws at the end of the arm she was resting against, it could only be one person.

And he was _purring_.

At least, that's what she guessed the soft rumbling emanating from somewhere between his chin and solar plexis was.

She was too sleep-drunk to be flustered or shocked just yet. Yoko laid there silently, closing her eyes and enjoying the unfamiliar -- but not unpleasant -- sensation of someone leaning against her bodily. Being this close to him, his smell was pretty strong. Mostly sweat and dry mud, but there was also an underlying musky scent that was almost...

The thought that crept across the back of her brain jolted her awake, and she hastily wormed out of the beastmen's sleepy grasp. Sleep had made her forget about her injured leg, though, which was now sore and stiff. Still, she managed to shuffle away from Viral without waking him, and carefully pushed herself out of the tent. With some effort, she managed to right herself.

As she patted herself down, her hand landed on the flask still on her hip. Yoko shook it; empty. Good, fetching more water would take her mind off her sleeping arrangements.

She grimaced and tried out her leg. It worked, but putting much weight on it made the deep slashes in her hip burn. Luckily, there was a lake nearby, and plenty of trees between here and there to lean against.

The sloped lake shore was going to be more trouble than she realized. Dammit. Yoko was far too used to having a full range of mobility. Still, she persevered and hobbled her way to the water's edge, carefully leaning down against a boulder to scoop her flask into the lake.

Her mind wandered as she watched bubbles disturb the water's surface. Try as she might, she couldn't keep it from meandering back to that earlier warmth.

What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? Even after supposedly becoming an ally, he had always remained standoffish and distant from his human colleagues. He regarded everyone with a cold feline glare and he was constantly showing off those horrible teeth. That attitude certainly hadn't changed when she ran into him yesterday -- though, granted, she could understand why he might be a bit peeved at someone who shot him.

She could _not_ understand why he would suddenly decide to spoon her in the night.

It had to be unconscious. It had to be. Maybe he was thinking or dreaming about someone else. Did beastmen even have those kind of feelings? There wouldn't be much point, would there?

An explosion of water jerked her back to the outside world. There was a lunging open maw amidst that spray of water, and for a split second she stared down a fang-brimmed gullet.

It was a crocoroo. Though normally peaceful omnivores, the amphibious white beasts were unpredictable and could turn to fleshier prey if an opportunity presented itself. It made its intentions clear by snapping down on her flask, tearing it out of her grasp in a froth of mud and water.

She screamed and stumbled back, then cried again when she inadvertently shifted her entire weight to her bad leg. The crocoroo's long ears pricked at the sound of her pain and dismay. Horrified, she realized she had just given herself away.

The white beast hauled itself out of the water, her mauled flask still dangling from its maw. Its empty black eyes were pinned on her. It shifted back onto its rear legs, thick haunches coiling for an immanent leaping attack.

Instinctively, Yoko reached for a gun that wasn't there. She'd left it back by the tent. Panicking, she tried to run, a flood of adrenaline drowning out the pain in her leg. It refused to be ignored entirely, though, and it was still stiff and difficult to control. She could only manage a slow limping gait.

A wet, heavy weight hit her hard and threw her to the rocky ground. She saw blackness and stars. The reek of dank fur and old fish told her that she had been caught.

This was not how she had imagined her death. She had survived an apocalyptic battle in the deepest regions of space against an astronomical enemy determined to wipe out all life in the universe, only to be eaten by a smelly beast with rabbit ears.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of flesh violently striking flesh, and the weight was dragged off of her.

She was still, gasping for air and listening to hear heart race in her ears. Once it quieted, she became aware of a cacophony of snarls, thrashing and animal shrieks. Yoko lifted her head warily.

The crocoroo's pale coat was stained with running blood. Long, oozing cuts had been carved across its back, sides and over its muzzle. It had something pinned.

Suddenly, there was a flash of blond hair and a high-pitched yelp from the crocoroo. It stumbled backwards, shaking its head frantically and spraying blood on the shore. One of its ears was gone, replaced by a jagged patch of blood and tissue.

Yoko soon realized exactly where the missing appendage had gone.

The mauled ear was dangling from Viral's bloodied maw, dripping gore down his stony face. She had never seen his eyes so fierce.

For an incoherent moment, her terror magnified at the prospect of being in the presence of _two_ bloodthirsty beasts.

The crocoroo didn't spend long mourning the loss of its ear. Viral barely had a chance to stand before it overtook him again, sinking its teeth into his arm and twisting with such force that it was visibly wretched from its socket. He howled. Rivulets of blood ran down his thick forearm from beneath the animal's clamped jaws.

Her fear of Viral took a sharp turn into fear _for_ him. She tried to stand, but she was numb. All she could do was watch.

Viral clasped his hand over his upper arm. His lips wretched back in a silent snarl of pain, and he snapped his shoulder back into place with a sickening pop. He then lifted the wounded arm and twisted bodily, throwing the weight of the still-attached crocoroo against a tree and pressing his arm deeper into its muzzle to trap it there. It flailed uselessly, kicking out and swinging its tail at him, but he seemed immune to the blows.

Then he finished it.

Yoko's eyes widened as he dove for the beast's throat. It was not one clean bite. She could see his jaws grinding. The creature gurgled as his serrated fangs sawed through its tough flesh and severed vital arteries. He was up to his cheekbones in the the gouge, blood and sweat making his hair stick to his face.

He didn't stop until the mortally wounded beast stopped thrashing and hung limply in his grasp.

His neck and head jerked away violently, taking a chunk of meat along with it. He then freed his shredded arm from the dead crocoroo's mouth and let the beast crumple at his feet.

His entire face, throat and collarbone was splattered with blood, slicking back his bangs and the crop of fuzz on his chest. It dripped from his claws as he stood there, motionless but for a faint tremble.

The swath of flesh he'd torn from the predator's throat was still impaled on his teeth. Viral rolled it back into his mouth and swallowed it without hesitation. The motion seemed more automatic than deliberate. Mouth now unoccupied, he licked his maw and panted raggedly.

After a moment of recuperation, the bloodied victor turned toward Yoko.

"Are you okay?"

She jumped away from him slightly and unintentionally. The residual panic still making her shake must have been evident on her face.

An oddly wounded expression creased his brow. His deadly red-stained mouth sank into a soft frown. His eyes were no longer fearsome, but somewhere between rejected and still hopeful.

Finally able to gather her wits, Yoko sighed. "I'm... I'll be okay, I just have a few bumps and bruises. Y-y-you're the one that got your arm nearly torn off..."

He didn't seem to believe her and crouched down beside her, scanning her carefully. She could _taste_ the scent of blood rolling off of him. It dribbled onto the rocks below him with a quiet stream of _plip plip plip_.

It gave her a chance to look at his wounds in turn. Well, what she could make out of them, at least. Most of the cuts and bruises seemed faint and shallow already, practically closing up and fading before her eyes. The deeper tears on his mauled arm were far worse, and she noticed he was already looking paler than usual. The weary nausea that came in the wake of an adrenaline rush was settling into them both.

"Viral... s-sit down, you've lost a lot of blood," she urged, touching his shoulder to get his attention. He looked at her tiredly, and then dropped down into an inelegant lounge close beside her.

Despite the fact he was covered in filth and blood, Yoko didn't have the urge to pull away from him or demand he go clean up. Instead, she found herself very glad to have him there. The wind dragged some of her hair into his shoulder and it stuck there. Hell, they were _both_ bedraggled and filthy by now. It had been a violent day and a half.

Yoko was faintly aware of him nosing the crown of her head with light, feathery touches. It felt like some sort of animal expression of reassurance. Without realizing it, she leaned into his side, unconsciously trying to recreate the strange comfort from before.

* * *

Viral recuperated after a long stretch of shared silence, at least enough to help Yoko to her feet. He stepped away for a moment, back to the churned mud left after his battle with the crocoroo. The beastman grabbed the carcass by the tail and dragged it back over to her.

"No reason to let perfectly good meat go to waste," he grunted, answering the quizzical look she'd given him. "Here."

Viral looped his wounded arm over her shoulder, letting her prop herself up against his body so she could favor her bad leg. He took both woman and corpse back to the camp site. Once there, she stumbled away from him and looked herself over.

"Ugh.. I'm disgusting," she muttered miserably, frowning at the blood and dirt matting her hair and staining her skin and clothes.

"You look fine to me." He shook out his own messy hair, rolling his neck and stretching his sore shoulders.

"Are you blind?! You... you really made a mess," Yoko mumbled, wetting her fingers and trying to rub some of the blood off of her arm. She couldn't know if it belonged to the crocoroo or Viral.

"I can clean you off."

He said it with a completely straight face. The look she gave him was even more horrified than the one on the shore.

"I think... I think I can wait until I get back to the schoolhouse," Yoko mumbled, still trying to brush away the dirt and gore in vain. Her face was almost as red as the blood decorating them both. "It's not much more than a day away from here."

He stepped closer, tilting his head. "Can you walk that far with that leg?"

Yoko looked up. He was well within her personal bubble and apparently oblivious to it.

He reeked of everything. His hair was a tangled, sticky disaster. There was a day's worth of light blond stubble underneath all the blood spattering his lower face. Despite all this, she still felt a strange nervousness that was not at all related to his capacity for brutal, feral violence.

Viral picked up on the change in her mood and frowned guiltily. He backed away, and Yoko swore the tips of his slightly pointed ears drooped. When did he become so attentive, anyway?

"I'll be okay," she said carefully, looking away from his face, "Besides, I'll be able to treat it better once we're back in civilization."

"We should get going, then, but," Viral looked back at the torn lump of dead crocoroo, "Not before we eat."

* * *

He had obviously done this before.

Viral had hung the crocoroo carcass upside-down on a sturdy tree branch and sliced a wide slit in its gut to bleed it dry. It was a macabre display; Yoko had primarily hunted small game before, and brought the big kills back to Ritona for the butcher to deal with behind closed doors.

She watched him cut arcs into the beast's hide and peel swaths of the tough, dirty skin off with ease. She did not watch him saw off the head.

Instead, she busied herself with expanding the small fire pit she had built for herself earlier since it was hardly large enough to roast a full grown crocoroo. It kept her mind off of her discomfort, both from the lingering jitters of being attacked and the grime covering her. There was something else, too, a nagging in the back of her mind that tickled her spine. She didn't understand it, but it made her keep glancing over her shoulder at her unlikely companion.

This time, she caught Viral shaking out his hair and rolling his bare shoulders. The strange crest of -- fur? -- going down his back shifted along with his scarred skin as it was pulled over his musculature. The lean, but well-defined arches of a body honed by years of training and rough living were obvious even under all the muck. She caught herself and wondered why she was paying such close attention.

Admittedly, he looked far more human than most of the beastmen she had seen in all her time above ground, but there was still something distinctly raw and primitive about him. It clashed with his high sense of honor and smooth, well spoken speech. In both fighting against and alongside him, he had shown his fighting style to be far more refined, pragmatic and disciplined than the reckless, gung-ho humans. The beast was more civilized than the men.

That idiot tenacity was something she had both admired and hated in Kamina. Him, Kittan, Simon -- all the men she had known had been full of the fighting spirit of an entire army. They had been fiery, bursting volcanoes. The killer in her presence now was far... icier.

Except he leaned against her. He purred. He looked like a kicked puppy when she rejected his awkward attempts at helping her. That really dashed the stony facade.

The sound of something wet and meaty hitting the ground interrupted her thoughts. He'd finished gutting the crocoroo and a pile of still-warm entrails had fallen on his feet. Viral grunted distastefully. They reeked.

He cut them loose and kicked them into the far brush without hesitation.

Yoko completed the spit and he sheared away a slab of haunch muscle. On a creature with such powerful legs, it was by far the thickest and juiciest cut. Viral looked back at her, seemed to consider something, then walked over to offer her the meat.

"Here." Not allowing her room for argument, he picked up the spit stick and speared the sirloin on it, "I'll wrap up the rest so you can freeze it when you get back."

"T... thanks," Yoko stared at the dripping slab, then back at Viral, "Aren't you going to eat too?"

"Later," he looked down at himself and lifted his lip disdainfully, "I'm going to go clean off."

"Um, okay," Yoko blinked, caught off guard by a mental image of Viral licking himself off like a cat. She shook her head forcefully.

When she recovered, he was already gone.

* * *

_"What the hell is wrong with me?!"_

Once out of Yoko's meager human hearing range, Viral quickly shed the cool front he'd managed to keep while carving the dead beast. Seething, he tore a bush out of his path, sending leaves flying. With a sharp twist of his knuckles, his claws unsheathed to their full extension and he used them on any branch or brier that got in his way.

This _vacation_ was not helping in the slightest. Not even the thrill of slaughtering the crocoroo seemed to satisfy the restless urges wracking him. He sank his claws into a tree and dragged through the wood, leaving curled bark in his wake. He threw off his clothes in a rage and leaped into the water.

The shock of hitting the frigid water startled him out of his frustration.

His protective system quickly warmed his body back up to an acceptable temperature. He relaxed.

Viral tried to busy himself with scrubbing off the old blood caked onto his skin and hair. He tore off the stained bandages around his stomach and examined his recent wounds; there was little trace of them.

The fearful look she regarded him with after he dispatched the crocoroo was far more upsetting than he had let on, mostly because he was becoming convinced it was not completely unfounded.

He _did_ want to go after her. He wanted to grab her and pull her close, far, far more than he had anyone else. Being alone with her in the wilderness exasperated it. He wanted to smell her and _taste_ her. She stirred a kind of hunger in him, though this one didn't come from his gut.

Viral sank into the water, long hair drifting around his head. Even in all his years of hunting humans, he'd never had the feral desire to attack them like he might a fish or a wounded raccoonbird. Killing them was a duty, not sport. It made no sense that this urge would manifest years later towards someone he considered an ally, maybe even a friend. But then, he'd already hurt her.

On the other hand, if this were a thirst for killing, it seemed odd that one of the few times it was almost quenched was when she was completely in his grasp. When she was leaning against him, completely vulnerable, warm, soft...

He was pretty sure most predators didn't get this strange tingling affection when they were close to their prey.

When he'd heard her scream that morning, his first impulse was not to act on an opportunity to strike, but to protect her. Seeing the crocoroo trapping her on the shore didn't inspire jealousy at another hunter stealing his kill, only unbridled rage. He attacked it completely without precision, planning or forethought.

And when he offered to clean her, he had meant it completely innocently. He would've been happy to go wet the blanket for her and help her scrub off the stubborn filth. The look she had given him was so aghast, though, he could only imagine she had misinterpreted his intentions. Did she think he wanted to groom her with his tongue?

His mind lingered on that thought. He inhaled the water deeply.

Maybe he did.

Viral shook his head furiously. He huffed in frustration, sending air blasting out his gills and bubbling to the surface. Goddammit, this was confusing. Leeron better have some answers when he returned.

Speaking of returning...

He was frantic get away from her earlier before he burst, but he already found himself longing to go back. Just in case she needed something. He had a responsibility to her. After all, he was the one that lamed her.

He was suspicious, though, that even if she was in perfect condition, he'd still be hovering around her.

He didn't want to miss any chances to touch her.


	4. Night 3

The meal was quiet and awkward. Yoko suspected that Viral cooked his portion of the meat out of courtesy rather than necessity.

"If we head out now, we can get there... maybe before nightfall," she finally broached the thick silence, idly stirring the ashes in the dwindling fire with a stick.

He just nodded, either not knowing or caring that she had intended that to be a conversation opener. She shifted uncomfortably. Obviously, subtlety wasn't going to work.

"You know, I don't know a whole lot about you," Yoko ventured, giving him a sideways glance, "I don't think anyone in the Gurren Brigade does."

Viral cocked his head, then shrugged. "I was created to be a solider. I trained all my life to be a solider. That's all I am."

Yoko sighed. He wasn't being very cooperative.

"I don't care if you were engineered by Genome. You're obviously still a person, so don't tell me you don't feel or want anything. That you've never experienced anything worth remembering."

He seemed slightly taken aback, and shrugged more meekly this time. "I remember my battles. I remember all my losses and victories. Mostly my losses. They did not _feel,_" he sneered around the word halfheartedly, "very pleasant."

"You're seriously telling me there's nothing more to your life than fighting?" She was just frustrated now, scowling and balling her fists. "You must like something!"

He was quiet. The wind running through the golden autumn valley around them filled the silence.

"I like to fish."

Yoko allowed herself a small but victorious smile. "Oh?"

"Yes. Not with one of those stupid rods, with my hands. I swim and catch them myself. Swimming... I like that too. The water is relaxing."

She implored him to continue with her eyes, and for once he complied.

"When I was young... I was created to be a high-ranking soldier directly under General Thymilph's command. I had much harder training than my peers. When I was little I didn't think it was fair.

"I would run away from the training camp to the wilderness, and find a lake to hide in. I'd stay underwater until they stopped looking for me. Sometimes I fell asleep."

"Asleep... underwater?"

He nodded casually. After a moment, he realized why she was looking at him oddly and hooked the wild hair falling over shoulders under his thumbs. Viral lifted it away to reveal the thin slits on his neck. They flexed in unison with his breath.

"Oh, wow!" Yoko suddenly scooted over to get a closer look, causing him to jump slightly. "So you can breathe underwater, huh? Like a fish."

Viral grunted at the comparison, but nodded again. Fascinated, Yoko leaned in and squinted at the gills. "They look a little red."

"I don't usually have them exposed to the open air. My uniforms have either had a high neck or I had a scarf to protect them. My hair isn't much of a substitute."

She frowned. "Do they hurt?"

"I'm f-fffffff-"

Unconsciously, she had set her fingers on his neck and examined them as if they were wounds. He froze. She was close enough that her breath tickled them.

"Sorry, I wouldn't have cut up your shirt if I knew. Maybe I can still cut the neck off..." She found herself strangely intrigued by the strange organs. Her finger ran down the outer edge of the topmost slit. The tissue was soft and slightly moist, like lips.

Yoko glanced up briefly. The beastman's face was crinkled with twitchy irritation. She almost pulled back, until she felt the gills start fluttering beneath her fingertips with a soft, silent vibration.

Curious but cautious, she gingerly dragged her finger down the slits like they were piano keys. Hearing his breath hitch satisfied something in her that she couldn't quite identify. The corner of her smile tugged into a smirk.

Viral whined at a pitch just barely within an audible range. Unable to contain himself, his head tipped forward and he tried to snarl.

_"Stop it, Iiinnghhhhhrr-rrr-rrrrr..." _

Without warning, his purr started up like a chainsaw. He ground his teeth, visibly flustered, but the reaction was apparently involuntary. Startled, Yoko pulled back, but his enormous hand snapped out and clasped her hand back to his neck. His head tilted towards her and he rubbed his throat against her palm, the tremendous purr rattling her knuckles. After the initial surprise passed, she stifled a giggle.

"That certainly doesn't have anything to do with being a soldier," Yoko continued stroking, trying to force her grin down to a mere smile. The fearsome hunter seemed helpless in her fingers. She couldn't have imagined being in this scenario even a few moments ago.

Viral turned his head to look down at her. His eye was heavily lidded in an expression between concern and discomfort, distraught despite his purring. Yoko's smile fell.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She stopped her fingers, resting them against his pale skin.

"Y-you cannnnrrrr. Can't drrr-do this," his breath and voice were distorted by the rumbling, and he looked exasperated, trying to force the words out around it. "I'lllrrrr hurrnnnn. H-hurt you."

Taking that as a threat, Yoko's heart skipped a beat in sudden cold dread. She slipped her hand out from under it and pulled away from him. Her face contorted with confusion and hurt, and Viral became crestfallen when he saw it.

"N-no. No. I mean. I wouldn't, on pur. Purpose. I don't want to," he fought to smooth out his voice, and finally sighed, "I feel like an animal lately."

Oh. She sagged with relief. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." He hung his head, idly rubbing his reddened gills. "I would have left if I hadn't hurt you already. I need to help you get back."

He stood up and wrapped the good meat in the old skin of the crocoroo, leaving the remains for the coonbirds. Without warning, he started packing the rest of the camp site. When Yoko moved to get up and assist, he waved her off and dismantled the tent on his own.

"I can carry some of that, you know," Yoko scowled as he stubbornly cleaned up the camp site, "I'm not completely incapacitated."

"Just rest."

Viral hefted the rolled-up tent and packs onto his back, shaking his hair back and adjusting to the extra weight. Yoko quietly marveled as she snuffed out the last of the burning embers of the fire. He was stronger than his lean frame belied.

"Are you ready?"

She looked up at the beastman and nodded. He offered her his monstrous, grey-skinned hand. After a moment of hesitation, she set her hand in the far larger palm and he helped her to her feet.

Yoko managed to stand, but immediately winced. Not bothering to ask first, Viral slid his free arm around her shoulder blades, pulling her to his side.

_This_ again.

Just like the first time, it was strange how warm he was. Yoko didn't expect him to be cold-blooded or anything, but still.

Maybe this was just what it felt like to be held.

Yoko grimaced inwardly at that maudlin thought. It was choice, not chance, that kept her far away from intimacy. She suspected the only man who _wouldn't_ jump at the chance to have her in his arms was Leeron. But after Kamina, then Kittan... she had started associate romance with death. She was happier to teach, go camping, practice at the shooting range. It was much less morbid.

But this wasn't too bad right now.

Hell.

It was kind of _nice_.

The walk was uneventful. Yoko managed to tease out a few more conversations from her stoic companion, but for the most part the day was spent in silence.

Though he was quiet, he was attentive. Even when they sat and took breaks, he remained close to her and on guard for predators. When they got to a difficult part of the trail, he carried her. Over and over she insisted that she was perfectly fine and capable of taking care of herself, and each time it went completely unheeded. By the time the outline of the schoolhouse stood out against the sunset-painted horizon, she had stopped bothering and let him wordlessly lift her over some steep rocks.

"We're here," she quietly announced, "The kids are probably all on the ferry to the mainland by now."

Viral grunted softly and helped her the rest of the way to the building. She leaned against some playground equipment and sighed, while the beastman unpacked the load on his back. Yoko watched him crack his back and shoulders, stretching out the strain.

"You okay?"

"Fine," he rumbled through a toothy yawn.

"Well, I'll get Kataki to bring that stuff in."

The brow over his golden cat eye arched, and Yoko waved dismissively. "The substitute. He's been covering for me while I was gone."

Viral rubbed his wrists. He seemed to be mulling something over. "Then, I suppose I'll be on my way."

Yoko blinked. "What?"

"My Grapearl's on the other side of the island. It'll take me a while to get back over there."

"Oh no!" Yoko scowled, "You're not ready to go trekking anywhere after all that. Stay the night, I'll take you back on my bike in the morning."

He almost protested, but soon realized that hadn't been a suggestion. Viral shook his head and sighed through his teeth. "All right."

Yoko grinned.

"Hey, Kataki!" She shouted, hobbling towards the front of the building. Viral shadowed her, like he was waiting for her to fall. "You around?"

A slightly frazzled young man peered around the edge of the building and smiled, pushing up his glasses. "Miss Yomako, back already? I--"

He faltered when his eyes fell on the tall, scarred, wild-haired, half-clothed beastman behind her.

"Eheh... Sorry, this is Viral," Yoko introduced them awkwardly, "We've had a rough time out in the brush. Do you mind bringing these things inside?"

"N-not at all, M-miss Yomako," Kataki stuttered, keeping his eyes on Viral as he went to retrieve the bundles. His hand fell on the crocoroo hide and he yelped, recoiling away from the bloody makeshift sack.

"Something the matter?" Viral sneered, pointedly flaunting his fangs.

Kataki gaped, and Yoko swatted Viral's shoulder with her knuckles.

"We did some hunting, so that'll need to go in the freezer," she kept her eyes on the beastman, who sniffed indignantly, "_Viral_ can take care of that."

Viral grabbed the sack and hefted it over his shoulder, sparing Kataki one last predatory leer before wandering inside to find the freezer.

"H-he," Kataki sputtered, nervously gathering up the remaining bags, "H-he's a friend of yours?" Yoko nodded. "We were in the Gurren Brigade together."

She had given up keeping her identity a secret -- it was futile after the stunt she pulled when the island was attacked by rouges. Though the adults knew, they collectively deemed it wisest to keep the children in the classes following the attack in the dark. There was no need to distract them with a celebrity teacher.

"T-that's right, t-the beastman..." Kataki watched Viral enter the main building warily, then turned his attention back to Yoko. "M-Miss Yomako, your leg!"

"I'll be okay, I'm just a little sore." She waved off his concern, suddenly becoming conscious of the fact she was completely missing one of her pantlegs. She pulled her gunstrap over her shoulder and hobbled forward. "Don't let him scare you too much. He's harmless."

"What happened to your leg?"

Yoko paused.

_Well, not completely harmless..._

She shrugged and put on a smile.

"It was just an accident."

* * *

Yoko looped her still-damp hair into a high ponytail and sighed, relishing her cleanliness. She'd showered, soaked her aching limbs and treated all of her wounds, leaving her refreshed and ready for a warm meal -- one with plates and silverware this time -- and a soft bed.

She strode into the school's small kitchen, assessing her spread of tools. It was cramped and utilitarian, every utensil within reach. She didn't really consider herself a chef, but she was practical, especially when it came to meat preparation. Hunting was one of her favorite past times and she'd taught herself the art of butchery, prizing her collection of painstakingly maintained blades almost as much as her weapons cache.

Viral had done as instructed and packed the meat into her freezer. Still too fresh to need thawing, she pawed through it to find some choice cuts. The bulk of the carcass was still intact and unwieldy, requiring far more carving than her stomach had the patience for.

Yoko sighed and started packing the kill back up for the freezer, ready to resign herself to soup, when a large hand steadied the heavy hunk of meat.

"Need some help with that?"

Viral's voice and sudden presence within her personal bubble made her jump. She bumped back into his chest, and looked up to see a now familiar golden stare. It was the rest of him was the real surprise.

He was clean. His hair was combed back into a ponytail, held together with one of her own bands. The beastman had a shirt now, a cornflower blue collared top and slacks.

Viral blinked down at her, then followed her gaze. "I found these in a closet in the spare guest room. I would've asked, but I couldn't find you."

"It's... nice," Yoko murmured, then shook her head. "I mean, it's okay! It's fine. They belong to a seasonal sub that won't be back for months."

Then Viral did something odd.

The corners of his lips tugged upwards, causing the top row of fangs to slide into view. It was an awkward and sincere smile, bordering on dorky. She stared without meaning to, and after a moment, muffled the laugh that threatened in the back of her throat. Yoko smiled back around her hand.

"Uh... sure!" She finally remembered his request, turning around to tend to the meat again. She grabbed a knife from a nearby rack and started sawing away at the tough hide.

She delegated a few tasks to him, and he carried them out dutifully. The kitchen felt even smaller now, though, and the two were forced to brush and bump and reach around one another constantly. Yoko did her best to keep her focus on cutting and cooking, setting her jaw firmly and hoping her hardest that she wasn't blushing.

She couldn't help but wonder if her companion was faring any better, and stole a glance over at the beastman. He was expertly carving steaks out of the crocoroo's rump. He set his work on a plate and turned around to hand it to her.

When he offered the meat, she took the opportunity to get a good look at his face. At least, that's what she had been aiming for, but her eyes fell on his neck instead. With his hair back, his gills were clearly visible in the warm light of the kitchen, and they were now as pale a the rest of him.

"Hey!" Yoko set the meat aside and pushed his collar back to get a better look, "Are your gills all better?"

Viral paused, caught off guard for a moment, before nodding dismissively. Undeterred, she brought her hands up to his throat, setting her fingertips on the slits.

"They," Viral swallowed, looking away from the human, "They just needed to be covered up." He motioned at the upturned collar with his chin.

"Well, after dinner I'll try to find you a scarf or something better so they don't get all red again." Yoko didn't take her hands away, idly stroking the gills with her thumbs.

The beastman gave in even quicker this time. His eyelids drooped and he pressed into her hands, and though she couldn't hear it, she felt the flickering rumble of a purr in his throat. She heard his claws click on each side of the counter she was standing in front of, and he leaned down into what was nearly an embrace.

Despite the fact he was effectively pinning her, she didn't feel the suffocating claustrophobia that most people would've induced. Maybe it was the ridiculously pleased look on his face or the contented purring, but all she felt was affection for the hapless blond in her hands. She wasn't starting to think of him as some kind of pet, was she?

"Did you need any help with cooking, Ms. Yoko--?"

Kataki's voice shook her out of her thoughts, and she quickly looked between the substitute standing in the door and the beastman leaning into her bodily. She quickly stopped her stroking, assuming that Viral would quickly snap back into a more appropriate posture.

But his huge hands lingered near her waist. When she realized he wasn't moving, Yoko looked up at his face. He was glaring hatefully at a confused Kataki. Grimacing, the substitute started rambling. "I-I heard some, something going on in here and. And. I. I just--"

A monstrous snarl from the beastman cut him off. Viral suddenly clutched Yoko and held her to his chest, hovering over her and almost digging his claws into her back.

_"Get out."_

Kataki tried to put together a stuttering apology, but he couldn't manage anything coherent.

Yoko was at once disturbed and incensed. "Viral! What the hell's your problem?! Let go!"

Her otherwise ferocious companion seemed slightly cowed by her demand, and after a long, reluctant moment, he let go of her. His deadly glare didn't relent, though, and poor Kataki was practically hiding behind the door.

Yoko shoved him back for good measure, making it clear how displeased she was with the beastman before storming out of the room. Kataki gave her a wide berth. He and Viral stared at her retreating form with bewilderment.

"I made her angry?" Viral wondered aloud to no one in particular. Kataki looked back into the room at the blond and shook his head warily.

"I-I'm sure she'll be fine. I didn't mean to, um, intrude or anything, I didn't know you were in here with Yomako-san. I didn't even know you were _with_ Yomako-san, or that, well, she was with anyone, or, um..."

Viral furrowed his brow at Kataki in irritated confusion. "I've been _with_ her the past few days."

"Er, no, I mean..." The sub waved his hands nervously. "...you know. _Together_. Not that it's any of my business, I-I just had no idea."

Viral narrowed his eyes at the babbling substitute and snorted. "Do you know where she's headed?"

Kataki blinked at him, then looked down in thought. "Well, sometimes she likes to go outside to this small hill by the beach. I've never f-followed her too far, because, well, she probably wants to be alone, so... w-why?"

"Nothing that concerns _you_," Viral replied tersely, then shut the kitchen door in the human's face.

Kataki rubbed the back of his neck, frowning at the door and mumbling to himself.

"Why do they always go for the jerks?"

* * *

Though the island was full of unfamiliar scents, Yoko's was easy to follow. He had become particularly accustomed to it recently, and could pick it out even from the ocean air and the warm, meaty smell wafting up from the plate he was carrying. Viral's stomach growled; he growled back. This food wasn't for him.

A faint path wound from the school to an outcropping of rocky beach. A lone, scraggly tree clung to it, and Viral's keen night vision spotted the figure sitting beneath it. He loped over silently.

"Yoko. Here," he crouched down beside her and held out the seasoned shank-meat he had prepared. She flinched at his sudden presence, glancing between him and the food uncertainly. She still looked a little mad, but apparently more hungry than proud, she took the plate. He produced a knife and fork from his pocket for her.

"I came out here for a reason, you know," she scowled as she started sawing at the meat. Viral shrugged and sat down; judging from the look she threw his way, that hadn't been an invitation to join her.

"Listen," she speared a morsel on the fork and pointed it at him accusingly, "We've been cooped up together for the past... I don't know, 24 hours? More?"

He nodded, but didn't move.

Her scowl deepened and she shook her head. "You don't need to keep following me everywhere!"

It was his turn to flinch at her sudden sharp tone. She was still angry? Why was she angry anyway?

Moreover, why did he want her to _not_ be angry at him so badly?

Whatever it was, the beastman finally got the hint and started to stand.

"I apologize."

Guilt flashed across Yoko's face and she shook her head again, "I mean, you don't need to keep worrying. I'm fine, I..."

Her voice trailed off, and he decided that was his cue to leave. But he was only a few steps away when he heard her again.

"...hey. This... This is pretty good," she noted between chews.

Viral paused, looking back hopefully. "Thank you."

Yoko seemed to struggle with herself internally, then finally swallowed and sighed in exasperation. "I didn't mean to snap, you... you don't have to go. But..."

He resumed his position beside her cautiously. "But?"

"What was that about, back there? Kataki's a nice kid, not... not a crocoroo or anything. You don't need to bite his head off. He's already scared of you."

Unspoken shame pulled down the tips of Viral's ears and the corners of his mouth. He thought about it for a long moment; hell, he'd thought about it the entire time he'd been cooking her dinner. He still didn't have an answer.

"I don't know," he admitted in a long sigh, "I came here to get better and it got worse."

"Better...?"

"Leeron told me to take a vacation. I suppose I was treating everyone at the capital like Kataki, up to and including Rossiu. _Especially_ Rossiu," Viral sneered slightly, but it soon fell again. "...I don't know why I'm so angry lately."

"I understand needing to take a break now and then, but..." Yoko's voice softened, "You've been... for the most part... a gentleman towards me."

"It's strange, isn't it?" Viral stared down at his oversized claws thoughtfully, "Something about you calms me down."

"Oh, I doubt it's me," Yoko focused squarely on her plate, "Being out in the open does that."

"No," the beastman closed his eyes, "I ran, I hunted, I fought, but nothing changed. Maybe I should've stayed an exile."

"Hey, you're part of the Gurren Brigade. Don't say that--"

"A role I'm certain would fit a human far better than..." Viral's voice darkened, and he pulled his claws into fists and sneered, "...a malfunctioning relic of a defeated empire."

He felt a light touch on his gnarled knuckles and opened his eyes.

"_You're_ the one Simon chose to succeed Kamina, Viral. Whatever you were before that doesn't matter."

The tension in his face and fingers softened. "It matters if I am turning into some kind of monster."

He heard Yoko snort. "Viral, a _monster_ wouldn't cook me dinner and bring it out to me. I know you're not human, but you're still a person, and even with fangs and claws and a temper you're still far more dignified than a lot of the humans guys I've known."

Viral raised his eyebrow skeptically, and she smirked. "You're clean. Considerate. Well-spoken. You look at my _face_ when I'm speaking to you."

"What else would I look at?"

She laughed and he didn't know why. It was a legitimate question, wasn't it?

But it was quickly forgotten when she gingerly set her arm against his back. "Whatever's wrong with you, I'm sure Leeron will figure it out and we'll all be here for you."

He could feel himself smiling at her in a sheepish manner that felt unbecoming of a two-time top-ranking military official, but the simple pleasure her touch brought was no more within his control than his snarling flares of anger.

Viral returned the gesture, his longer, larger arm looping over her shoulders and maybe pulling her into his side just a tad. She stiffened at first, but was otherwise still and accepting. He even felt her head settle against his shoulder. Unable to contain himself, he swept his chin over the crown of her head and hooked it there, purring unabashedly.

"Viral..."

The quiet tone in her voice wasn't familiar. It sounded anxious, uncertain and happy all at once.

"Hr_rrrrrr_m?"

Her hair tickled his neck as she slowly shook her head.

"Nothing."


	5. Day 4

Note: Argh I went back to reread the earlier chapters and I noticed so many mistakes and ffnet screwed up the formatting on the last chapter (there were supposed to be separators before and after the scene in the kitchen) but that should be all fixed now. Until I read it again and find more.

ALSO Ridney drew an awesome picture for me of said kitchen scene! It's linked in my profile since ffnet eats any URLs I put in the story.

* * *

Yoko stared at the flesh that obscured her vision. She sighed.

This was the second time this week she'd woken up with the beastman. At this rate, people might start to wonder.

All she remembered was being tired and his shoulder being comfortable. When she craned her head, Yoko could see they were back in her room, on a bed that was barely big enough to fit one person. Viral's arms draped over her and off the edge of the mattress. He must've carried her back inside. The notion made her smile.

Viral was sprawled half on her and half on the inadequate bed. The way his narrow chin was pressed against her scalp should have bothered her, but it didn't. Yoko's nose was scant inches away from the tuft of blond hair running down the middle of his chest. It was a strange pattern, not something she'd seen on a human male.

In the pale grey morning light, she couldn't help but also notice he wasn't as broadly built as the only other guy she'd known with a propensity for running around without a shirt. Viral was considerably lankier than Kamina. Instead of swooping blue tattoos over his sides and shoulders, there were deep, wicked scars. He had a lean build, rough skin taut over sinew, the kind that came from a harsh life. The only bulk the beastman had was in his deformed forearms. He reminded Yoko of some of the leggy, prowling carnivores on the flat plains of the surface.

His soft snoring was accompanied by a barely discernible hiss from his gills whenever he exhaled. Those made her smile a bit wider. Never again would she mistake him for a stoic grouch.

Yoko reached up to set her palm near the strange vents. She didn't know why, but she liked making the tall beastman purr and scrunch down against her fingers. Her thumb wandered over them.

Well, not entirely. She knew at least one reason why.

It was _cute_.

Asleep and uninhibited, his chest started up like an old motor, and he shifted his weight to lean further onto her. Yoko tried not to giggle.

Then his purr deepened and stretched out into a rumbling groan that froze her fingers and made her breath hitch.

Until now she'd thought of rubbing his gills like stroking a pet, something sweet and innocent. That sound had been neither.

He grunted impatiently into her ear when she didn't continue, his breathing warmer and heavier than it had been before. Deeply unsettled, she carefully pried herself out of his sleepy grasp and sat up, glancing back at him uncertainly. Apparently he had stripped before joining her in the small bed, down to a pair of white briefs.

If she'd had any doubts just how much the beastman enjoyed her touch, they were gone.

Red-faced and overcome with the need to shower, Yoko quickly fled to the bathroom.

* * *

The shower didn't help much. It only left her alone and naked with her thoughts.

A mere two years ago Viral had been a dangerous rogue. Before that, one of humanity's mortal enemies. He was something made by Lord Genome for the purpose of eradicating rebels; in a way, just a fleshier version of all the weapons and ships and ganmen they had inherited from the spiral king. He'd had a hand in Kamina's death. She had seen -- and felt -- first hand just how dangerous he could be. The accidental tear he'd left in her thigh still throbbed with pain when she walked. He had torn that crocoroo's throat out like an animal. In many was he _was_ an animal. Humans certainly didn't snarl or purr or breathe underwater or sniff her neck.

And here she was now, trying not to think about his arms around her, his weight on top of her. It was hard to not be at least a little endeared by his constant protectiveness of her even, though she was loathe to admit it, when it veered into possessiveness. Yoko sighed and rolled her eyes at herself. She was a war hero, a world famous marksman, one of the champions of humankind, and still some stupid part of her liked it when he acted like a neanderthal for her sake.

She busied herself with soaking her long tresses. It was different, at least. Most guys were intimidated by her. The only ones who weren't had either been, well, Leeron or stubborn blockheads like Kamina and Kittan. Maybe she just had a secret weakness for idiocy.

Or maybe she was just lonely. She wasn't even a widow -- all she'd ever gotten was a kiss before the guy ran off to die. Poetic as it might seem in the history books, it was hardly a substitute for a real relationship. Something that had less gunfire and noble tragedy and more touching, smiling, lounging around.

Apart from the hunting accidents and wildlife encounters, something like the past few days had been with the beastman.

Yoko knotted her fingers in her hair at the thought.

Oh god, she wasn't starting to _like_ him, was she?

Though almost a decade had passed since the war against the beastmen was over, she had never heard the concept of a human and beastman doing anything intimate together except as an insult or part of a crude joke. Interspecies relationships weren't even taboo -- they just didn't happen. Maybe in secret, but thinking about it, Yoko couldn't recall beastmen seeming interested in relationships with one another, either. Though they were allowed full freedom in human society, and she had seen plenty out and about in the world, she could never recall seeing a pair holding hands or cuddling in the park.

Leeron said they couldn't reproduce -- just how far did that go? Did they even have sex or fall in love or even just maybe get tiny little crushes on each other? Was it because it had been so strictly outlawed under Genome, or did they mentally and physically lack the capacity for such uniquely Spiral endeavors?

The thought depressed her, more than she felt it should have if she were just feeling sorry for Viral's poor bastard race. She grimaced and shook her head, throwing water droplets onto the ceramic tile of the shower.

Then again, if this morning had taught her anything it was that they didn't _completely_ lack the proper plumbing for at least going through the motions of reproduction. She shuddered, and try as she might to convince herself otherwise, it wasn't in revulsion.

A loud bell penetrated the fogged bathroom walls and mercifully took her off that train of thought. It reminded her of her job, the daily routine of her life that had somehow slipped her mind entirely.

Yoko quickly wrangled her hair into a towel and scrambled to get into her teaching uniform. She stumbled out of the bathroom, still hopping to get into one of her stockings and on the lookout for her glasses. Instead, she found something missing.

The bed was empty, with no sign of her strange bedfellow.

She heard the familiar horn of the morning ferry sounding from the docks; the one that brought all the offshore faculty to school.

Not to mention the students.

She had no idea how they would react to a tall unclothed beastman covered in scars and brimming with talons and teeth, nor Viral to a gaggle of children with a median age of 6.

"Crap!"

* * *

Viral found his clothes where he had strewn them last night and dressed himself before heading outside. Yoko was gone when he woke up, and he hoped he hadn't made her mad again. In retrospect it probably wasn't polite to invite himself into bed with her. He couldn't even claim that sleepiness fogged his judgment; the body Genome gave him didn't get tired, and sleep was purely indulgent. Before now he had generally regarded it as a waste of time, something he only did when he was truly bored or depressed, but watching her sleep made it easy for him to follow suit.

_BRIIIIIIIIIIIIING!_

What the hell was that awful sound for? The sudden piercing bell hurt his ears, so he left the teacher's shack and strolled down to the beach.

Oh.

Children were milling around the docks in the distance, laughing and arguing and otherwise just procrastinating before they had to go to their first class of the day. He knew Yoko had taken up civilian life as a teacher, but never thought her wards would be so young.

A few were pointing in his direction and whispering amongst each other. Viral had been spotted. He didn't know what to do but stand there awkwardly as the children egged each other on to approach him.

One little human seemed braver than the others and pushed forward without encouragement.

"Hey, mister!" She shouted at him from what they must have felt was a safe distance, with her friends hiding behind her in a tight knit group. "Who are you?"

He blinked down at them. He wasn't used to not being recognized. "I'm Viral. Commander of the Chouginga Daigurren."

"The what?"

"That big giant spaceship?"

"Why are your arms so weird?"

"Are you a monster?"

Viral frowned. "I'm a beastman."

That made them gasp and start chattering with each other again. A few edged back and one fled back to the main flock of children still at the docks.

But the girl that had spoken first was unimpressed. "Is it 'cause you're super strong?"

"Eh?"

She came over to his side and pulled on one of his claws fearlessly. "Your arms, duh! They must be big so you can lift big stuff, right?"

"I don't --"

Unwilling to wait for an answer, the blond girl grabbed onto his forearm and hung off of it like he was a piece of playground equipment. Viral stumbled, caught off guard, but lifted his arm -- and the girl -- to puzzle at her.

She squealed and kicked her legs in the air enthusiastically. Startled, he set her down, and she pouted at him.

"My turn!" That shout was all the warning he got before another kid latched onto his free arm, tugging on it.

None of his military training had taught him how to deal with an onslaught of children. He sat down amongst them so they'd stop yanking his arms, but that didn't slow them down. Next they all wanted to see his ears and teeth and he felt one of the girls doing something with his hair.

They weren't scared of him at all. They were born after the war; they'd never lived underground or in fear of beastmen or their ganmen. Despite his status, the only adult humans who didn't give him a wary look and a wide berth were his compatriots in the Gurren Brigade. More than once someone had shouted angrily down at him from a window or the other side of the street, accusing him of killing someone or destroying their village. Viral didn't argue. They could very well be right.

But these children didn't know. He found some redemption in their innocent acceptance and curiosity.

The brave girl even reminded him of --

"Mel! Badu! Leave Mr. Viral alone, you're late for class!"

The children and Viral looked back in unison. Yoko was standing there with her arms crossed, though it took a moment for Viral to recognize her in her ankle-length skirt, her tasteful sweater, tiny glasses and green tie. It was a far cry from the barely-there outfits she usually enjoyed.

She herded the children away from him and shoo'd them towards the schoolhouse. Once they were out of earshot, she adjusted her glasses and sighed busily. "Sorry, most of them have probably never seen a beastman up close before."

He caught himself grinning far too late.

"...Viral?"

He coughed and looked away. "It's fine. They weren't bothering me."

She knelt beside him and lifted up a lock of his hair that was messily half-braided. "Uh huh."

He shrugged dismissively and snorted. Yoko smiled and tilted her head.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as the type to like kids."

Viral went quiet and stared at the ocean.

Thinking she'd offended him somehow, Yoko grimaced and shook her head and hands quickly. "I didn't mean -- not because you're a beastman or anything, but just because you're not really a people person, you know? I--"

She stopped and surrendered to the uncomfortable silence, until an idea struck her.

"You know, I technically have today off, too."

His ears lifted a little and the beastman finally looked at her.

"I could take you back to your ship on my hoverbike -- it'd be a lot quicker than you hiking back across the island. Kataki can handle the kids until I get back."

Viral considered. Normally, his pride and independence would make him say no. Being with her was confusing and uncomfortable.

But he found it very hard to turn down the chance to stay with her a little longer.

"All right."

Yoko looked up when he agreed and smiled broadly. "Okay, I'll get my keys!"

* * *

A motorized sputtering caught Viral's ear and interrupted his seaside mulling. Yoko was behind him, on her bright yellow hoverscooter. She motioned to the stretch of seat behind her with her head.

He examined the space before he started to sit down. She laughed and turned him around to face her back.

"You'll fall off like that. Hold my waist."

Viral hesitated, arms in the air for a moment, before he did as instructed and settled his broad hands on her side. Her much smaller hands guided them forward, until he was embracing her. Viral then willed his hips to slide down behind hers. She took up most of the seat and it was impossible not to spoon her.

He swallowed and felt very warm for some reason, not sure if it was the vibrations from the bike or something else that made his head buzz. Unable to keep it aloft, he exhaled slowly and settled his chin on her shoulder.

"Like this?"

"Yeah." Yoko smiled at him, but it looked nervous and distant, like she was wrestling with something internal herself.

He willed himself to relax, soaking up her warmth and closing his eyes. Not too relaxed, though -- he was afraid he might start purring. This was nice. Far, far too nice.

"Hold on." She revved the engines loudly before launching the scooter into drive.

Sitting there behind her wasn't easy. No matter how he adjusted his weight or arms, he no less wanted to bury his nose into her skin. He wanted to do this whenever he was close to her, but with the open air ride, he couldn't even enjoy her scent from a distance.

Viral turned his head by a few degrees, stealthily bringing it close enough that he could inhale her scent without the wind blowing it away. He managed to get his nose all the way to her neck. He thought he heard her protesting, but the whistling air stole all the sound around them. She couldn't let go of the steering mechanism to reach back and dislodge him either, so all she could do was scrunch up her shoulder to try and force him out. Undeterred, he just moved to the other one. When she shrugged both shoulders at once, he nosed her scalp and grinned toothily into her hair.

She tried to swerve the vespa sharply to throw him off, but he tightened his grip and pressed himself against her back. It was _fun_ to tease her when he couldn't hear her yell at him.

He saw a familiar white bulk amongst the trees out of the corner of his eye and frowned. That had to be the Grapearl he borrowed.

A frustrated Yoko slammed on the brakes and wrestled the hoverscooter to a tumultuous stop on the stretch of beach where the ganmen sat. She jumped off as soon as she turned off the engine.

"What's gotten into you?! Did you want me to crash?" She glared venomously at the beastman, still red in the face.

"Sorry," he apologized without an iota of meaning behind it. He couldn't stop grinning. "You smell nice. And look nice."

The anger faded from her face, replaced by a blank expression that was still quite ruddy. He got up off the scooter while she processed his boldfaced statement. But she was still worryingly quiet when he walked over to her, and he wondered if he had really done something truly wrong. His face fell.

Viral considered for a moment, then hugged the blushing woman, in a much more sincere, wordless apology. He squeezed her. No response. Concerned, he pulled back to look at her face.

Her golden eyes looked up to his and he couldn't read the expression there. He furrowed his brow, helpless, and sought to say something that would fix the situation. Why the hell did he have to screw up and say something like that?

"Bye, Viral," she said quietly, breaking the gaze.

His heart dropped. "No, wait. Stay. Please?"

Yoko smiled distantly and shrugged. "I can't exactly go back with you."

"Help me start up the Grapearl." He was internally distraught, reaching at anything to keep her here.

"I don't think you need me to do anything--"

"I'll make you breakfast."

"I didn't bring any food."

He suddenly let go of her and peeled off his borrowed shirt almost violently. Startled, she stumbled back. His pants were next. "Viral?!"

With inhuman speed he turn and ran off a rocky pier, diving into the sea water. Yoko stared, then struggled to follow him, but her high heels were horrible in the sand. "Hey!"

She finally made it to the edge of the small cliff he had thrown himself off of and scanned the water for him. With water this shallow, the idiot could have easily crashed into rocks. When he didn't emerge, concern set in heavily and she took off her shoes, running down to the shore to make sure he was still alive.

She stepped into the lapping surf, hiking up her skirt. "Viral! What the hell are you doing?!"

Then the water exploded. She yelped and nearly fell into the sandbar. Chaos splashed around her, drenching her clothes, until finally the missing beastman stood up from the froth.

He held a huge fish, at least three feet long and still trying to thrash out of his grasp.

Yoko stared at him incredulously. "Jeeze, Viral, let that poor thing go!"

He blinked. That obviously hadn't been the reaction he was going for. He started to argue, but slumped in defeat before he said a word and tossed the frantic fish back into the water.

He looked so downtrodden that she couldn't help but smile and touch his shoulder.

"If you want me to stay, just say so. You don't need to run off and catch the biggest thing you can find." She sighed and held up her dripping skirt, "Or soak me."

"Well, I was going to bring it back to you. I don't know why you came down here."

"Because you jumped off a cliff! What were you going to do with it, anyway? We don't have a fire set up or anything. Not all of us like raw fish."

The beastman shrugged futilely, looking down.

She frowned. Poor guy. She inched a little closer and set a comforting arm around his shoulders.

Only then did it occur to her just how wet and nearly naked he was.

A dangerous thought crossed her mind. She immediately dismissed it, but it was persistent. She bit her lip and slowly took off her glasses.

They were all alone out here.

"Listen, I... these clothes need to dry out," Yoko couldn't look at him, removing her glasses and biting one of their ear hooks. Her face must've been bright crimson. "It's nice and warm today. Do you... do you want to go for a swim? I-I mean, the weather's perfect..."

The huffing grunt of shock from him was almost answer enough, but she saw him nod mutely. Yoko gave him a smile she hadn't used since that fateful night with Kamina. "Stay here."

He stood obediently, but still watched her until she disappeared behind some large craggy rocks on the shore. The skirt, the sweater, the tie, even the stockings were looped over the rock by unseen hands, straightened and smoothed out to get the most sun exposure.

Viral felt very strange. Inexplicable giddiness was making his breathing hard. Nearly painful anticipation was worrying at his stomach. It stretched on for what felt like hours. What was taking her? He dared to wander a few yards to the left, trying to steal a glance behind the damn rock.

A pair of slim hands suddenly shot from the water behind him and pulled him back into the surf. He flailed and nearly clawed his attacker until her breasts settled against his back.

Viral spun around to face her. Yoko was down to her underwear and a simple, white version of the bare sling she usually wore as a top. She smiled at him shyly before turning away and swimming into deeper waves.

Something primal flared in him and he immediately chased her. Yoko was fast and athletic, but only human; he easily outpaced and outmaneuvered her. He attacked from below, swinging her into his grasp and surfacing with his captive clasped to his chest. She laughed and kicked at the water, squirming against him. He dragged her back to the shoreline, resting against a sandbar and still half-immersed in water.

He purred and held her, and his victim stopped struggling.

Yoko paused, looking at his chest, then up at him. The human had a strange smile on her lips. He felt her wind her arms around his shoulders, setting her hands on the back of his neck and scalp. He held her tightly, leaning back into the water so he could float and support her weight.

And then he had no idea what she was doing.

Yoko's lips were up against his. It was a warm, strange sensation that was even better than having his gills rubbed. He held her tightly and tried to return the bizarre but wonderful gesture.

"Ow."

It was over. She pulled away, smiling but rubbing a tiny wound on her lip. "Careful with those teeth."

Left in a breathless daze, it took him a moment to process what had happened. His chest tightened, weighed down with guilt and helplessness. "Sorry. I don't. I didn't know what to do."

Her smile was comforting and affectionate. She was rubbing the base of his scalp, too, making it hard to remain upset. "You've never kissed anyone before?"

"'Kissed'?"

"I guess not. It's... well," Yoko looked around, as if the sea water might help her explain, "It's something humans do. You must have seen some doing it before. Remember Simon and Nia's wedding?"

"Oh. Yes, I think so." Viral blinked, then frowned. "Right before she died?"

"Yes, well, that doesn't _usually_happen," Yoko sighed, her face darkening. Her tone became quiet and distant. "At least, it's not supposed to."

There was sadness in it, too, and Viral tilted his head, adjusting his hold on her so she was just a tiny bit closer. "It was nice."

Her gaze drifted back up to him, and a small smile tugged on her lips.

Encouraged, he got a bit bolder.

"Can we do it again?"

Her expression blossomed back into the shy contentment from before. "Okay, but just use your lips, all right? I'll... um. I'll show you. Lick them a little first," she breathed, inches away from him, demonstrating on her own lips.

He mimicked her almost involuntarily. "Tilt your head a little... no, in the opposite direction of mine, so our noses don't get squashed together."

Viral obeyed as best as he could, eyes locked on her intently. He didn't even care that she was giggling at his expense. Hell, right now, he was happy to hear it.

"Annnd..." She set her fingertips on his cheeks, gingerly guiding his face closer. Yoko tilted into his lips to give him a slow, deliberate kiss, sliding her hands back behind his head before pulling a hairsbreadth away from the anxious beastman, "...just like that. You try."

Viral swallowed, and tried.

When she didn't pull away in pain again, he relaxed enough to melt into the kiss, closing his eyes and copying the one she'd given him. And when she started returning it, fingering his scalp, every inch of her leaning against him...

It was distracting enough that he barely noticed the terrible nameless feeling that'd dogged him for months broiling within him, rising along with his temperature. It seized control of him, taking his hands and sliding them down her back, putting a breathless growl in his throat, making kisses fiercer.

It made him suddenly twist and pin her to the wet sand. That broke them apart momentarily, and they both struggled to catch their breath. She smiled up at him with her lips parted, cheeks flush, and a languid expression that just made everything hotter and tighter and _worse_inside and somehow even outside--

Confused, he looked down past his chest and gut at his briefs.

_That_hadn't happened before.

Baffled and startled, he rolled off of his friend and backed away, fidgeting and trying desperately to will his body back to normal. Yoko blinked and sat up on her elbows. "Viral? What's wrong?"

He looked over at her helplessly. The water had made what little she was wearing translucent and clingy. He almost whimpered. The urge to attack her -- or do _something_to her -- was nearly overwhelming. That bizarre desire was worse than it'd ever been, a craving deep in his gut that made all the starvation and dehydration and insomnia in the world pale in comparison.

He was absolutely certain he would tear her apart.

Viral hurtled himself out of the water, practically on all fours, and bolted to his Grapearl. She might have been shouting behind him, but he couldn't hear anything over his thudding heartbeat. He scaled the mech's hulk in record time and threw himself into the cockpit, scrambling to take hold of the controls with shaking wet hands. Between his frantic emotions and clumsy grip, the Grapearl struggled to start, but after what seemed like an eternity he was able to make it light up and right itself.

Standing on the shore, dumbstruck, Yoko watched it blast off into the sky over the ocean. Her hormones were still abuzz from anticipation that refused to believe her would-be lover had just torn himself away from her, looked for all the world like he might cry, then sprinted across several hundred yards of beach in his underwear to climb hand over fist into his mecha like a terrified monkey.

What the _hell_.


	6. Next Week

This felt good.

_Not as good as..._

Viral snarled the thought away and focused on the cockpit in front of him. The last few days had been long and uncomfortable.

He'd been thinking about her far, far too much.

He unconsciously compared every woman he saw to her. They all came up short -- not as pretty, not as tough, not as nice, not as something -- and part of him wanted nothing more than to crawl back to her island and hold her again. Sleeping alone had gone from routine to something cold and unsettling. He was a miserable coward for running away. If he had just had a spine, he would've been able to control himself. Then he could still be beside her, protecting her, touching her, breathing in her scent...

In her absence the demon inside of him had gotten worse, making him itch for something intangible, unspeakable. Being back in civilization made him burn. So did the thought of that simpering male that was still back at her school. The irrational rage that flared up at the mere memory of the substitute's face made him reconsider his personal policy of never eating humans.

No, no, no. He wasn't a monster. He couldn't let himself become one. He had to stay away. He had to find _somewhere _to funnel this excess, wild energy before he went insane.

If anything would distract him, it'd be _this_.

Viral was surprised at how easy Gimmy had given up the core drill. Then again, after the war Gurren Lagann only gathered dust in a government hangar, trotted out only for the occasional special event or photo op. Disgraceful. Viral thought of his plans not so much of a joyride as restoring dignity to the forgotten ganmen.

As unforgettable as his time co-piloting Gurren Lagann had been, it had also been brief and fraught with the severity of their struggle. Besides, it was the only ganmen from the Spiral King's era still in service. All new ganmen were based on those damn Grapearl knock-offs. They were a pale imitation of Genome's originals; and he'd been but one of many to pilot Gurren. He wanted to see what it was like in Simon's seat.

He sank into it, gripping the steering rods and rolling them to judge their weight. This tiny, powerful ganmen was special, not just because it was Simon's, but because it had a control scheme he had never seen in his years of piloting. All of the others activated as soon as they detected someone in their cockpit, but Lagann required ignition. It seemed like a strange, backwards limitation for such a legendary ganmen.

Viral shrugged and slid the drill into the spiral console. His thick, clawed thumb made it difficult, but he managed to screw it in until he heard a click. One final turn, and...

Nothing.

He blinked and twisted the drill again. The console lights flickered, but soon died. A slow growl curled his lips. He turned it harder.

The lights remained on this time. Every display cell lit up, and surrounded him with question marks.

Viral bristled at its obstinacy. "You know damn well who I am!"

Since awaking this morning in a fog of muddled, hot frustration, the idea of taking a war machine to a desolate stretch of desert and letting loose was far too appealing to deny. He was still on vacation, and this time, there would be no buxom women shooting him or confusing him or kissing him or --

He belted out an infuriated, animal sound and threw all of his strength into twisting the drill.

The display was suddenly awash in a brilliant, familiar green. It spilled into every gauge like a river of emerald light, and the puzzled question mark icons flipped into thumbs-up symbols.

His rage ebbed into a satisfied giddiness, and he grabbed the steering rods with a proud sneer.

The display switched to the hangar door, which now rolled open at his behest. Gurren Lagann barreled outside, much to the confusion of a few mechanics and maintenance workers in the vicinity.

Viral slammed the thrusters to full blast, and the ganmen's wings snapped out as it rocketed into the sky. The adrenaline pitched him into a fit of mad laughter. He'd always been too much of a good soldier to ride a ganmen so recklessly, so stuffy and eager to please even when he was a fresh recruit. Screw that. He soon sailed far beyond the limits of Kamina city, the desert a long blur below him.

An outcropping of boulders caught his eye as it flashed over the display. He threw Gurren Lagann into a twist sharp enough to nearly knock himself from his seat, wheeling it around to launch it fist-first at the doomed rocks. Unprompted, drills sprung from its massive fist and drove into the boulders, shattering them into pebbles across the empty plains.

The steering rods were hot in his hands. He gripped them tighter. Something impossibly invigorating seemed to flow from them, into him, out of him -- he couldn't tell, but it was addictive. It surged into his soul and came back out in the form of a feral howl of glee. He launched missiles at nothing and reeled through the air with wild abandon.

Not in a million years would he have flown Enki like this. Enki was a delicate, precise instrument of battle, fine-tuned and tightly controlled. But this machine was something else. He'd gotten a taste of it, piloting Gurren, but he knew now what he'd been missing. It seemed wrong to even call Gurren Lagann a machine. It wasn't controlled by his hands or his head, but it to some kind of internal fire that it stoked into a blaze. His jaws hurt from grinning, but he couldn't stop. Viral came here intending to escape, but he hadn't expected _this._

Gurren Lagann skated close to the earth as he carved a huge furrow into the wastes with its drill. Rocks were obliterated in his wake.

If this was the power the humans had, it was no mystery why they won.

The revelation didn't bring the usual bitterness that accompanied thoughts of the Spiral King's defeat. At the moment, caught in its thrall, he was nothing but impressed. Wildly, furiously impressed. The bizarre fire that'd been roiling within him for months was finally allowed to burst into an inferno.

_This_ felt good.

---

"Leeron. I've been looking all over the capital for you."

Leeron looked up from his clipboard to offer the president a wicked smile. "Oh, Rossiu, you tease."

Rossiu was long desensitized to Leeron's flirtations and nodded towards the clipboard. "I was hoping you had a diagnosis for the captain. Is that it?"

"Mmhmm," Leeron hummed, flipping through a few pages, "I'll need to run more tests to confirm. If these are right, this is terribly incredible."

Rossiu frowned. "Is something wrong with him?"

"Welllll, not quite," Leeron's smile turned mysterious as he shuffled the papers together before Rossiu could get a good look. "I don't want to get everyone all excited, so my lips are sealed until I know these are accurate."

Rossiu remained grim. "Leeron, I need to know if his crew is in danger. I won't hesitate to pull him off of the Cathedral Terra if he's degenerating into some kind of animal."

"He's no more dangerous than any of its previous pilots, sweetie." Leeron winked, causing Rossiu's forehead to crinkle in confusion. "You worry too much. I'm amazed you haven't turned that pretty hair of yours grey yet."

"This is serious--"

"Tch," Leeron sighed, "It always is with you. If you're so worked up about it, I'll let you sit in when I break these preliminary results to him. Will that get your panties out of a bunch?"

"Very well. I--" Rossiu was cut off by his communicator watch beeping and flashing. He lifted it and Leeron peered over his shoulder. "Yes?"

"Sir!" Guinble's face appeared on the display, "We've just gotten a report that Gurren Lagann has left the hangar. Engineering says its weapons systems are going off!"

Rossiu's tone became more severe than usual. "Who authorized this?"

"N-Nobody, sir."

"Put Gimmy on the line so he can explain himself!"

Guinble nodded sharply, and the display phased out until Gimmy answered his communicator.

He grinned. "What's up?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Rossiu's voice was laced with disapproval, "What are you doing out there?!"

"Uh," Gimmy blinked, "It's lunch time?"

Rossiu's stony face implored him to continue.

"What? I'm in the cafeteria."

The president's expression cracked slightly, baffled. "Then who's out there launching offensive strikes with Gurren Lagann?"

"Oh, yeah, I probably should've told you about that," Gimmy laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. "Viral asked to borrow it, no idea why."

That got Leeron's attention. He leaned into Rossiu's communicator. "Who else is out there with him?"

"I dunno, he was by himself. He seemed pretty grouchy. I didn't want to ask too many questions."

Rossiu stormed over to the nearest monitoring station. "Focus the satellite cameras on Gurren Lagann's coordinates immediately!"

Caught off guard, the engineer manning the station nearly spilled his coffee before he gathered his wits and hurriedly input the coordinates. Several different camera views popped onto the monitors, all of the familiar red ganmen blasting away at a stretch of empty desert.

"Put on the cockpit communicators!"

The displays switched to two views; one of Viral, bathed in green light and grinning like a crazed shark, and the other of an empty chair.

Rossiu mentally prepared a torrent of reprimands, but he was jarred into silence by Leeron shoving him aside to get a center stage view of the monitors.

"That's..." the mechanic was struck silent, so Rossiu knew it was serious. Leeron glanced at his clipboard before tossing it over his shoulder with a strangled laugh. "So much for more tests! This is amazing!"

"Amazingly stupid, perhaps."

"Rossiu, you were my assistant for all those years and you don't know what this means?" Leeron turned his own disapproving scowl on the president, who was momentarily cowed.

"I--"

Leeron didn't give him a chance to defend himself. He hovered over the engineer, enthused. "Put him on the line!"

The engineer hit a few keys, and Leeron grabbed a headset microphone.

"My my my!" Leeron chanted, and the beastmen on the screens suddenly jerked to attention, glowering at the sudden intrusion. "Look at you! Viral, do you realize what you're doing?"

Viral pulled back on the controls, glaring at the screen. "I'm training. I don't want to get rusty. Must I get permission to do even that?"

"Yes--" Rossiu was cut off again.

"Forget that!" Leeron smiled brightly, "You're piloting Lagann! You're using the core drill!"

Viral's brow furrowed much like Rossiu's. "Yes...?"

Leeron sighed, exasperated. "Do any of you men have two brain cells to rub together? You're a beastman! Most humans couldn't even pilot Gurren Lagann by themselves!"

Viral sneered. "I have far more experience piloting ganmen than any human, so it's no surprise--"

"_It requires spiral energy!"_

Everyone blinked dumbly in unison.

Leeron was still bursting with amazement. "Viral, my tests were right! I know what's wrong with you! Oh, I'm all aflutter with excitement," the mechanic giggled breathlessly, fanning himself.

Rossiu raised his eyebrows as high as they would go. "So you're saying...?"

"Mmhmm!" Leeron clapped his hands together, "I don't know how yet, but there's no question about it, my handsome beast!"

Viral stared at the screen blankly.

"You've got spiral power!"

---

Viral had been in a lot of foul places in his life. Tepperlin, before its fall, had been a cold, industrialized knot of military efficiency that cared far more about routing beastmen and ganmen off to their respective theaters than things like aesthetics -- or even cleanliness. The air was smog and the walls were spattered with rust and moss. The city's waterways were gutters for sewage. Genome never left the palace and hardly cared that his child race lived in utilitarian filth.

The outside world wasn't much better. The surface world the humans craved so desperately was by and large a miserable wasteland, full of desert, plains, sandstorms, and not much else. Historians told him the planet was once green and verdant the world over, but the humans had destroyed most of their own atmosphere with pollution. He could believe that.

Then there was space. He'd seen more of it than any beastman. By now he had traveled far beyond the tiny planet that was once the only world he knew, beyond the solar system and into the various hells the Antispirals had prepared for them. It was a lot like the desert; empty, silent and devoid of life.

Still, of all the places he had been, Leeron's examination room had to be the worst.

He watched the strange mechanic saunter back and forth, reading off test results that were meaningless to him.

Viral watched him, then spoke over his chatter in one last attempt for succinct clarity. "I have spiral energy."

"Yes! It's amazing!" Leeron set his clipboard down and sauntered back to Viral.

"I don't understand. I am turning into a human...?"

"Oh no, not at all. We're not the only things with spiral energy. Plants and animals have it too."

"Then why do I feel like this?" Viral's head sank between his shoulders, bangs shadowing his face. "Is spiral energy so destructive it would turn me into some kind of... mindless beast?"

Leeron laughed and wiggled his brow at Viral. "You're not mindless, sweetie. You're just thinking with the wrong head."

He was at his limit and Leeron's evasive tittering did not help. He lifted his head with a guttural snarl, snapping his claws into the metal table hard enough to make it twist and shriek in his hands. "_I wanted to hurt her!"_

Taken aback, Leeron wisely edged away from the furious beastman. He harrumphed and brushed off invisible dirt off his chest with indignant swipes of his nails -- then narrowed his eyes at Viral, raising one eyebrow at him severely. "Wanted to hurt _who_?"

Caught, Viral looked down again, lowering his ears and hackles. "I went on a vacation. Like you said. To an island south of the city--"

Leeron suddenly jabbed him in the chest with a pencil. "What did you do to my poor Yoko?!"

The engineer's sudden maternal flare startled Viral and he relinquished his grip on the table. "What? Nothing. That's why I left. I was afraid I would hurt her. It got so bad when we kissed--"

"_Kissing_ is hardly _nothing_," Leeron leered at him, "You have no idea what that girl's been through."

Viral bristled right back at the mechanic. "She's the one that did it!"

Leeron's glare lingered, but he finally sighed and relented. "I suppose I can't really hold you accountable, seeing as you're completely clueless."

Viral growled, but Leeron waved it off and continued. "I don't expect you to be able to understand what you're going through. Let me see if I can break down. What do you know already?"

"Spiral energy lets humans reproduce and evolve," Viral tried to remember how Genome had phrased it, but the Spiral King's explanation had been brief and enigmatic, "It's an energy that gives them their destructive potential."

"That what he told you, huh?" Leeron examined his nails, rolling his eyes. "I suppose that's one way to put it."

Viral glowered, but listened.

"It's not all about explosions and drills and evolution. It's about... _passion_. It's what gives us life and what we die for," Leeron set the tip of his pencil to his lips, "Sure, it's what makes us fight, but it's also why we love. Simon's power wasn't about hate or vengeance, most of it came from his love for his brother, for Nia, for his friends."

"What does that have to do with evolution?"

"Well... when a man and a woman fall in love, their spiral energy gives them... passion, and then they have kids. They pass their traits onto the children, making a new, different, better generation than the one before. Since beastmen were engineered artificially, they never had that passion. You could feel anger, hatred, crave vengeance, Genome made sure of that, but... if you felt love, you'd be as dangerous as us humans."

Viral was silent. His dream -- _that_ dream -- played in his head. "I still don't understand."

"When humans a born, they're similar -- their spiral energy isn't fully realized until we're... about twelve or thirteen. At that age, the body goes through a transformation as a result of the spiral energy blossoming." Leeron gestured with his hands, illustrating the point. "All of your problems are symptoms are the ones human boys experience too."

Viral looked at him incredulously, and Leeron smiled. He tapped one long nail against the thin scruff on Viral's chin. "You're growing hair in new places. You're more aggressive; all that testosterone makes your fuse incredibly short. I swear you're even a little bit taller. And... you've started noticing girls."

"I've always noticed women," Viral frowned, confused. "They aren't invisible."

"Not like this. Girls go through changes too. Boys and girls are pretty much the same before puberty -- that's when their spiral energy activates -- but while guys get bigger, meaner and hairier, girls get wide hips and grow breasts. Both are to facilitate having children, but they're not bad for catching guys' attention either."

Viral's gaze was distant. "Yoko has those."

Leeron frowned deeply and smacked the side of the beastman's head. "Exactly. You couldn't help it before, but I don't want you thinking about her like that, you hear me? Find some other girl to pine after."

"But," his head sank, "I like Yoko."

Leeron's scowl turned a smidgen sympathetic, but he shook his head. "You don't know what you like. There's a heck of a lot you don't even know yet. You probably couldn't even explain what happened between you two."

"Yes I can!" Viral sat up, defensive, "We were out in the wilderness. She shot me by accident, and treated my wounds. I... unintentionally injured her leg, and brought her back to her school. The next day she took me to the beach on her hover bike. She wanted to go swimming, and I went with her, and then she put her arms around me, and she... She was kissing me, she said. On the face, with her lips. She showed me how to do it. But I burned inside so much, I thought... I thought I was going to hurt her... I ran away." He slumped as he finished his recollection.

Leeron looked unsatisfied. "And that's all that happened?"

"Yes. What does love or passion or reproduction have to do with that... feeling?"

Leeron shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Good grief, you really are helpless. Here." He turned and rifled through his desk drawers, eventually producing a disk sleeve. "Why don't you go home and watch this film, maybe you'll understand a little bit better. But stay away from Yoko, she doesn't need this."

Viral took the disk, his massive hands dwarfing it. He strained to read the title; human script was far more complex than the basic alphabet beastmen had used. He managed to translate it into _'Where are babies from?'_

Unsettled, he knew immediately that he didn't want to watch it. The wordless golden dreams were confusing enough, leaving him lonely and heavy-hearted each time. He eyed Leeron warily, but the mechanic was opening his office door and shoo'ing the beastman out. The chance to escape was irresistable.

---

The blast was not as satisfying as it should've been.

She'd blown a smoking hole in the torso of the target, leaving the upper half crumpled and hanging on to its body by a thread. Yoko narrowed her eyes and shot it off. The kick of the recoil rattled her teeth and guts, but it wasn't enough.

She slammed a button and new target slid into view. This one was dispatched with a shot that took off its head.

As tempting as it was to mentally replace the cardboard targets with a certain blonde beastman, the thought only made her heart heavy and she would have to bury it with another round.

It was both easy and difficult to be furious at Viral. Her rage was tinged with keen humiliation, something that ruined perfectly good fury. What the hell was wrong with him? What kind of man, human or otherwise, just ran away from something like that?!

Or worse, what was so wrong with _her_ that he'd rather scramble back into his ganmen wet and almost nude than be with her?

She tried to turn the hurt weighing down her lips into an enraged snarl. Failing that, she bit them. Yoko tasted blood when the next jolt of recoil hit her.

She understood why Kamina and Kittan left her hanging. They'd been at _war._ They weren't running away from her, but into battle. Viral had no such noble excuse. Besides, he'd been the one touching her all the time -- worrying over her, smelling her, holding her -- she hadn't misread his signals, he just couldn't man up to them!

Unless those hadn't been signals at all, and it had been stupid of her to take the actions of a beastman at anything more than platonic face value. He hadn't even known what kissing was. She had probably disgusted him with her bizarre human intentions.

She gripped the barrel of her rifle tightly and resisted the urge to lean her forehead against its butt. What was she thinking anyway? He wasn't even human. He was the same as all those smelly hairballs or weird fish-headed mutants they fought in the first war. _She_ should be disgusted by the thought of kissing him and his stupid huge mouth full of razors. It was practically bestiality, wasn't it?

Just because he was tall and toned and covered in intriguing scars and well-spoken and his growls in her ear and claws on her skin gave her a dangerous tingling thrill...

Yoko's face burned and she obliterated two targets at once. She was determined to shoot things until she forgot everything.

She'd spent a lot of time at the shooting range on the mainland the past few days. It hadn't done much for the pent-up frustration eating away at her innards, but damn it all if she wasn't going to try.

She centered the scope on the next target, finger curling over the trigger --

"_Ring ring ring! It's your favorite Ron! Pick up please~ Ring ring ring! It's your favorite--"_

Leeron's custom ringtone -- one he had set himself somehow -- nearly startled her into shooting. Grumbling, she leaned way from her rifle and picked up her videophone. "Hi, Ron."

"Tsk, don't sound so excited."

"Sorry," Yoko sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "It's been a bad week."

His knowing giggle was a little disturbing. "Oh, sweetie, that's the problem with dumb blondes. So pretty, but they'll break your heart."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She scowled at the phone, wondering where Leeron had acquired psychic powers.

Leeron's tone softened, "Don't blame him too much, Yoko. He's had it rough too."

"You -- What'd Viral tell you?!"

Leeron waved his hands. "Nothing juicy, I promise. No matter how much I pinned his ears back. Do I need to smack him for you?"

"No, I... nothing happened," she muttered, trying not to turn redder. "He told_ you?_"

"Not willingly, I assure you. It came up while I was telling him all about his condition."

Yoko froze. "Condition...?"

"Oh oh, worried about him~?"

"No! I mean, should I be? What's wrong with him? He seemed... well, he didn't seem sick, just confused..."

"Ah, yes. Well, it's always confusing to a boy when he becomes a man..."

"I said nothing happened!"

"I don't mean _that._ I should hope nothing happened, I already lectured him on keeping his dirty paws to himself."

"Ron!" Yoko shrilled at the phone.

"I just want what's best for my favorite sniper. I don't want him practicing on you just because he's horny and confused about his new spiral powers."

"It wasn't like that! I said -- wait, what?"

"Our big brute's been _being_ a big brute lately because his body's completely out of whack. I don't know how long it's been going on, but my theory is that he was exposed to massive doses of spiral radiation during our final battle with Anti-spiral, and the results of that are just... _exposing themselves_ now."

Yoko tried to ignore the entendre. "And?"

"Wellllll, I was being polite when I explained it during the war, but spiral energy is about a teensy bit more than just love. It's what makes men men and women women! And what lets those men and women have kids and continue the cycle of evolution! Or just lots of fun~"

She must've been bright red. "Leeron, get to the point."

"He didn't understand his feelings, sweetie. Beastmen have never dealt with things like this before -- he's as clueless as a boy that just hit puberty. He probably thought he wanted to eat you."

"Oh." She took in the information, guilt sinking into her chest. "Is that why he ran off...?"

"Mmmhmm."

"So, then..." Her tone became quiet, "He was just... confused."

Leeron frowned in sympathy. "You really liked him, didn't you?"

"No!" That came out way too fast. "I mean, I don't know! He confused me too. It was just a few days, it shouldn't mean much! I shouldn't care!"

Leeron clucked his tongue. "A few days in close quarters with a friend you don't know too well... that's how crushes happen."

"But I thought... ugh." She stared at her feet. "I'm an idiot."

"Yoko Ritona is no idiot," Leeron chided her, tilting his head. "As guys go, you could do a lot worse than a noble, handsome military captain. He just happens to be part shark."

"But it's like you said," she protested weakly, "He didn't even know what was going on or what he was doing, he didn't... It was probably just because I was some pretty girl..."

"Now now," he countered softly, "That remains to be seen. There are plenty of pretty girls over here, too, but he missed _you_."

Yoko blinked, lifting her head. "He did?"

Leeron wiggled his brow mischievously. "A queen can tell these things~"

Her smile was completely involuntary.

"Oh!" Leeron lifted his index finger, "I can't chat for long, but there was one other thing I wanted to tell you. The anniversary of our victory is coming up. I talked Rossiu into throwing a big shebang so we can all get together again. Knowing him, he'll probably want us to give speeches, but I'll at least make sure there's a full bar."

"You know I'm not big on parties, Ron," Yoko's frown returned. She suspected the mechanic had ulterior motives.

"You have to come! We all do. I promise, it'll be fun. Rossiu insists on black tie, but I'll make sure there's music and maybe even dancing~ Who knows, maybe I can even get his stick out of the mud. If you come, I _swear_ I'll spike the punch so you can see him liquored up."

The image gave her back her smile, and she sighed in pretend exasperation. "I'll see what I can do."

"I'll see _you_ there! Ciao!" Leeron blew a kiss at the display before it flicked off.

Yoko shook her head and put her phone away, smiling despite herself. She looked back at the targets.

She was done shooting for the day.


	7. 7

AUTHOR'S NOTE: holy shit guys i am not dead. i hope this longish chapter at least sort of makes up for my horrible updating time. things are going to be really slow on this, both since i don't have a clear plot in mind and just because i'm working full time and trying to go to school. this could be the last chapter. there's still more i could write about, but i'm getting kind of tired of this story and frustrated with my lack of direction with it.

the best way to help keep me going is to head over to my fanfic livejournal (see profile) and give me ideas and requests for things you want to see. or leave them in reviews here, but i have lots of other cool stuff at that journal like fanart for this story and stuff.

anyway, enjoy.

* * *

Fireworks exploded in the night sky, throwing dancing red light over the gathered crowd. Viral grimaced. The throng of humans was bad enough, but every crack, bang and shout felt like a bomb going off beside his sensitive ears. The smoke made his nose itch. His nerves were frayed; it was difficult to disassociate explosions from combat. _This _was how humans celebrated? His supposed acquisition of spiral power brought him no closer to understanding them.

At least the miserable distractions chased away other thoughts, ones more confusing and melancholy. He hadn't bothered to watch Leeron's disc, immediately burying it under paperwork he had no intention of doing. The thought of somehow turning into a spiral being -- which, in his experience, translated to 'human' -- was almost as disconcerting as descending into some kind of bloodthirsty beast.

He could have coped with the notion of becoming a human on its own, but dreams repressed since his time in Anti-Spiral's maddening fantasy realm were whispering to him once again. Viral tried to will them away, but in light of his new powers they were more vivid than ever. What had been singularly impossible was now in the realm of the tantalizing unknown. Whatever Leeron wanted him to watch would just make it worse.

Really, all spiral power meant to him was that he could now pilot Gurren Lagann. What else would he ever use it for? It was a non-issue. If he ignored it, perhaps it would dissipate. It wasn't like he needed something else to separate him from his own race.

He had not known another beastmen since joining the Gurren Brigade. Those he had grown up with were dead at the hands of his new friends and employers. Even though his actions ultimately secured a future for man and beastman alike, he could sense his people viewed him as a turncoat; a pet of the new human empire. Knowing he would live to see the last of his race wither away from old age just made his heart heavier.

At least, he tried to linger on these deep emotional and philosophical dilemmas amidst the flashes of lights and bumps at his shoulder. As painful as they were, they seemed nobler than the real cause of his anxious wistfulness.

It'd been weeks since he had seen her...

Yoko could be in the civic center. This was, after all, a celebration of the Gurren Brigade and their great victory. It'd been a year since they had destroyed Anti-Spiral, and those that were still alive had come together to remember those lost. She was one of them. She had to be in there.

But that fact just made the knot in his stomach twist deeper into his gut. Leeron had told him to stay away from her. She could be furious with him, angry, repulsed... For all he knew, Leeron told the whole Brigade and they might be as indignant and protective as the mechanic. Viral had gotten a formal invitation to the event, but he had learned one definite thing about humans: their actions did not always mirror their intentions.

On the other hand, they could be angry if he didn't show up. Trying to predict them gave him a headache. Perhaps he could just make a quick appearance and duck out before he ran into her. The thought hurt like few things had before, but he knew with enough time and enough busywork it would numb, and life could be the way it was before his ill-fated vacation.

It was strange, he reflected. He remembered himself being very good at coping with pain in the past, but now, in the seven years since Genome granted him his tireless, fast-healing body, pain was nothing but a fleeting annoyance. His tolerance must have grown lax. The ache in his chest felt physical enough, but it was apparently exempt from his healing abilities. Broken limbs -- and bullet wounds -- had hurt less.

Moping wouldn't help. Viral set his resolve and finally stood tall enough for people to recognize him. The crowd edged away from him to either grant him access to the civic center or escape the reach of his claws.

---

Yoko smiled for the crowd, waved, shook hands, applauded the speeches given from the podium at the head of the huge civic hall. Inwardly, she was hating her slinky red dress -- why did she let Leeron talk her into wearing this thing instead of her suit? -- along with the tiny purse, precarious heels and jangling jewelry that went along with it. She wasn't used to having an adoring crowd, and the spotlight made her cringe. Ducking behind Dayakka's bulk served her well, but only for a few moments; he was even shyer than her, and far more concerned about the noises and lights upsetting Anne than hiding Yoko.

She would be expected to go down and mingle. Rossiu had given them all instructions -- he called them guidelines, there had been little room for interpretation in his tone -- to go out amongst the people whose taxes were funding this gala.

_Yoko_, he had singled her out,_ be expected to answer questions about Kamina. You knew him best after Simon, and seeing as Simon cannot be with us..._

Yeah, dead lovers were her forte.

She regretted coming. She had been regretting it since she first heard the tone in Leeron's voice that signaled he would not let her worm out of this social obligation. It didn't matter to him that some of her pupils might be attending and could recognize her, or that she hated parties, or that she might cross paths with a certain beastman...

Yoko slipped past some cameras and down a flight of stairs onto the main floor. At least there was free food. Tetsukan and Attenborough had already planted themselves at the buffet and were chatting up any girl within hearing range between mouthfuls.

Her eyes wandered down the buffet tables. She did not mean for them to catch, much less rest upon a tall blond head that stood over most of the crowd. Viral was at the far end of the tables, near a secluded corner, miraculously being left alone. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded defensively. It was hard to tell at this distance, but his hair looked as if it had gotten scragglier since she had last seen him, making him look wild despite his suit. That struck her as odd, because in the time she had known him with the Gurren Brigade, he had always been well-groomed.

She took a few steps forward to get a better look. His suit was crooked, his tie hopelessly undone, and what had been a hint of scruff on his chin weeks ago had grown into ragged, short bristles across his entire jaw. Besides vaguely resembling a cat-eyed hobo, there was a note of sadness in his disgruntled, disinterested slouch.

He didn't look well.

Yoko had forgiven him as soon as Leeron had explained things to her, and even if she hadn't, it would've been hard to begrudge the beastman anything in his current state. What she wasn't sure about were his feelings towards her specifically. If Leeron was right, if he was just like a teenager, he would've simply been the last in a long line of slobbering, hormonal boys.

_Oh, don't get so self-righteous, _she chided herself, _It's not like you haven't been remembering what he looked like, running around without his shirt or hell, his pants..._

She felt a blush warm her cheeks, and she shook her head sharply enough to scare away a civilian that had been approaching her from the side. Being attracted to him hadn't felt so weird or wrong out in the wilderness, but back in civilization, she had to wonder how perverse it would seem to others.

Her feet didn't care, though; she realized they'd been walking towards the sulking beastman the entire time. She was now mere yards away from him, close to his invisible bubble of solitude. If he noticed, he didn't betray it in any visible way. In fact, she was close enough to see he had his eyes closed, brow knitted and pulled down into a scowl.

Yoko swallowed and stepped past the last line of people hovering outside of the beastman's well-guarded personal space. She opened her mouth to speak, but his nose twitched, and he lifted his head, blinking his glare away immediately. The furrows around his eyes seemed deeper and darker than usual, but the iris that met her was as bright as ever. Her lips smiled on their own for the first time that night.

"Yoko?"

Viral seemed genuinely surprised, as if he didn't immediately recognize her -- oh. Between the gaudy, strapless dress, the makeup and her styled hair, maybe he hadn't. She folded her arms over her over-accentuated bust self-consciously, quickly looking away.

"Yeah," she replied casually, trying to shrug away some of the awkward tension that had settled on her shoulders.

He was gaping. "You look..."

"Ridiculous, I know," she supplied quickly, twirling a lock of artificially curled hair, "It's Leeron's fault. He wouldn't leave me alone until I was done up to his satisfaction. He probably did the same thing to Kittan's sisters and Reite. I hope Kiyoh socked him if he said anything about trying to conceal the baby weight --"

She was rambling. She didn't ramble. He was ignoring her anyway; she felt his gaze on her in a way that made her cheeks burn hotter. Yoko stole an uncomfortable glance at him, and was surprised to find he wasn't eying her like a piece of meat. The beastman seemed genuinely impressed into silence. That didn't make the blush go away, but it did make her heart beat just a tad faster.

"No, you look..." Viral finally spoke, and she realized he had pushed off the wall to step closer, but she heard him hesitating. "... very... nice."

It sure didn't sound like a forced compliment. If anything, he might have been stopping himself from saying something more incriminating. Still, his tepid words dampened the tiny thrill she'd gotten before, and she was able to look him in the eye again.

It was easier to be huffy. "I can't say the same about you. Did you even comb your hair or think about shaving? We're supposed to be envoys to the public, Viral. You look like a mess."

She regretted her words immediately, since the same dreariness she saw before weighed down his posture again. "You're right. I'm being disrespectful. I should leave."

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easily. If I have to be here, so do you." Yoko strode up to him boldly now, reaching out to fix his tie. He blinked, looking down at her with the same perplexed look of a pet being made to wear a ridiculous sweater. Next, she straightened his lapels and tucked his unfolded collar, her manicured nails inadvertently brushing against his throat. She paused, looking up cautiously to see if he had noticed or cared.

Up close, his scraggly, unshaven face made him look older than she thought he was. Then again, when she was fourteen, he had already been a high ranking military commander. Who knew how beastmen age? For all she knew, he could have lived for centuries or been cloned and engineered straight to adult form ten years ago. Either way, he returned her puzzled stare.

Remembering the hundreds of people around them, she dropped her hands and stepped back to a respectable distance. Quick to stay on topic, she cleared her throat. "Maybe we can do something about that hair. Follow me."

He did as he was told, and it was much easier to weave through the crowd with the towering beastman behind her. Yoko escorted him to the second level and out onto an unused balcony she had spotted when looking for escape routes earlier. It was sparsely decorated with wicker patio furniture. Looking around to make sure no one was trailing them, she hurried him outside and closed the door.

Viral was obviously confused, but silently awaited her command. She saw him looking back at the door, as if contemplating bolting away.

"Just let me comb your hair. You're scaring everyone out there, and... you don't deserve that."

Baffled, he tilted his head at her inquisitively, but he did sit down in a chair. Yoko wasn't entirely sure what she meant either, so she shrugged and fought for the right words. "You're a member of the Gurren Brigade. People shouldn't avoid you like you're some kind of monster. You deserve their attention and respect as much as the rest of us."

For a moment, he looked touched, but he slunk into his seat. "I am more than happy to let you and the others have all of the attention. I dislike crowds."

"I know, I know, you're a dangerous, mysterious loner," she sighed in exasperation, rifling through her small purse for the comb. Viral only grunted in reply, and she set her purse on the table.

"Do you even have any friends?"

The question made him flinch, almost invisibly, but she saw it. She swore silently. Why was she being so hard on him? The poor guy had to look like hell for a reason. She was the one who had absconded him out here when he had probably been perfectly happy lurking alone in the corner.

"Aren't you my friend?"

His plaintive question felt like a barb twisting into her guilty heart. Yoko moved behind him to avoid his eyes.

"Of course, I didn't mean it like that. Sorry, the crowd's getting to me too." She lifted up the tangled tips of his hair, running her thumb over the blond locks.

"I would understand if you're angry with me," Viral spoke quietly, the motion of his head hanging tugging his hair out of her fingertips.

"No, no," She leaned in closer, gathering his hair up again more boldly, "Leeron explained things to me. It's not your fault. I shouldn't have been... encouraging you..."

"But I liked what you did." He leaned his head backwards this time, looking up at her upside-down. Just in time to see that he'd made her blush. She tried to shake off the rosy warmth by tossing her head.

"Well... friends don't do things like that with each other."

Viral deflated. "Oh."

Yoko sighed at herself loudly. "No, I mean..." She hesitated, then leaned forward inch by inch, convincing herself it was so she could slide her fingers beneath all of his hair, close to the root. "... People that do those things... are more than friends. It's... complicated."

"More than friends?"

"Like... Simon and Nia. It's something special that happens between men and women." She didn't need to confuse him with political correctness at the moment. Slipping into teacher mode helped her distance herself from her embarrassing explanations. "When they're... close, and they do things like hugging, kissing, and... other things."

_Please, please don't ask about other things._ She ran her comb through his hair, fully prepared to yank if he did.

What he did ask wasn't much better. "But... we are friends, and we did those things."

"I know. I didn't realize you didn't understand things like that. It wasn't really fair," Yoko chose her words carefully, concentrating far too intently on teasing out individual hairs. "It's not just, you know, touching and stuff. There's a commitment, and... certain feelings. It's a serious thing. You didn't know about any of that and I... wasn't really thinking either."

He was silent, and she didn't know if she should take that as good or bad, so she concentrated on combing. When the tangles were gone, she sifted through it manually, parting it neatly. A few strands of shed hair accumulated on his suit's shoulders, and she stopped to whisk it off. Inevitably, some of it fell onto his lapels, and she leaned down, reaching forward to brush it away.

Something made her stop as soon as she was leaning against the back of his shoulders, one arm halfway across his chest. It took a moment to detect, but there was a faint rumble beneath his shirt, emanating from his solar plexus. That purr was back.

Yoko smiled and didn't move, remaining in the half-hug. She hated to admit it, but she missed him and his awkward affections. She set her temple against his head tentatively. He tensed beneath her touch, as if reluctant to acknowledge it, but he gave in shortly and leaned back, reaching up to clasp her hand -- and most of her forearm -- with his giant paw. The silent, restrained purr flared into the rattling near-growl she'd come to know.

"Yoko," he murmured, "Leeron said --"

"Screw him," she grunted angrily and squeezed him. In the corner of her eye, she saw an out of place reddish smear on his hair, and she realized she was smudging makeup against his scalp. Yoko lifted away from the hug with a long sigh, scrubbing off the smear with her thumb.

"We should go back inside," she muttered regretfully. He still had hold of her arm, and kept his grip on it as he stood.

"This thing can't go on much longer," She opened the door to head back out into the bright lights of the crowded hall. "Maybe when it's over we can -- Viral?"

The beastman had yet to release her arm, holding her hand like it was perfectly normal for human and a beastman to have their palms clasped together. The warmth and softness of his giant, gnarled hand made her feel worse for her prudish hesitations.

She bit her lip, looking away. "You shouldn't... we shouldn't... uh... touch each other. When other people are around, I mean."

"Oh." Viral immediately let go, quickly withdrawing his hands to his sides sheepishly. Yoko took the opportunity to step through the door, and he followed, scanning the crowd. His brow wrinkled.

"But lots of people are touching one another out there. Why can't we?"

She shook her head slowly. Her hand felt cold now. "I don't think they would... understand."

Though she couldn't look at him, she could easily imagine the sad confusion on his face. "Understand what? I... oh. I see."

Yoko looked up in time to see resignation settle across his features.

"I am a beastman, I am not supposed to touch a human."

Now she really hated herself. Wild notions of flinging her arms around him and kissing him in the midst of a thousand people tempted her. This was the same society that told her she was strange for wanting to be a marksman or marring her beauty with the grease, blood and sweat of warfare. Why listen to it now? Was she ashamed of him?

"No! I mean, well, yes, that's what some people think," Yoko fought to find the right justification for her sudden puritanism, "And I mean, because of that, they might ask a lot of questions or bother us. I don't want to give people any excuse to gossip, do you?"

That rationale felt true enough to alleviate some of her guilt. He raised his eyebrow at her, but shrugged. "You have a point."

"Listen," she started before she realized what she was about to say, eager to mend his spirits, "...we can be alone later."

Viral blinked, startled out of his funk and rendered wide-eyed.

She left him to imagine all of the implications and possibilities in her promise, smiling and beckoning him to follow. "Let's go seem sociable, okay?"

He followed obediently.

---

The rest of the gala crawled along slowly. Yoko and Viral drifted apart and back together over the course of the night, finding it difficult to hold a sustained conversation with anyone else. As the crowd thinned towards the end of the event, they lingered around the now vacant buffet. Viral was not fond of most human food, heavy with grains and milk as it usually was, but he was hungry, so he picked off the remains of an appetizer plate without complaint.

Between bites he glanced over at Yoko, waiting for some signal that their ridiculous social obligation was done with. He didn't know why he wanted to be alone with her so badly, or what he wanted to do in that time, but her promise filled him with irrational anticipation. It had single-handedly lifted his dour spirits and quelled most of his nagging uncertainties.

She was sipping something red, watery and supremely foul-smelling; even at arm's length it made his nose burn. Yoko seemed oblivious to the stench, drinking her third glass as she stared at a distant wall. He'd been watching her with the same morbid fascination humans paid him when he ate his raw, bloody lunch.

Guinble's frantic voice snapped away his attention. "Sir, please, there aren't any more speeches scheduled for tonight, it's nearly midnight--"

"No," a perturbed and disheveled Rossiu replied, walking with a faint uneven hobble. His hair had come mostly undone, free strands draping the shoulders of his white suit. "I must find my. Notes. My notes for the final keynote. They're here somewhere."

"You delivered that speech three hours ago!" Guinble was at his heels, trying to direct the wobbling president away from the punch table.

Yoko's barking laugh drew the beastman's eyes back over to her.

"I guess Leeron made good on his promise." She smiled behind another sip of her drink, before a pausing a moment to examine the glass more critically. Yoko shrugged and finished it off, setting the glass down and turning her knowing smile at him. The agitation he'd sensed on her earlier had melted away, and Viral couldn't help but smile back. If she was happy, he was happy.

Her smile spread into a yawn and a shoulder-rolling stretch. "Let's get outta here."

Viral tilted his head, following her as she headed for the convention center's doors. "And go where?"

"You've seen where I live, I wanna see your place."

Viral frowned slightly, unsure. "Are you sure? There's really nothing there."

She laughed again. "Is there a bed?"

"Well, yes, but..."

Yoko snickered and waved him off, leaving him somewhat baffled.

But then, it was pretty late; she was probably tired.

---

The beastmen district felt cold. Yoko didn't know if it was the air or the stares.

If she knew it was going to be a hike through the bad part of town, she would've insisted he call a cab. It was hard enough to keep up with his long strides under the best conditions, nevermind in her long heels. Her leg was still sore too.

The city lost its shimmer -- and then basic maintenance -- the further they went into what was unofficially considered Little Tepperlin. It was a stretch of the city on the outskirts, a part of the old ruins of the ancient city that had remained relatively intact and unchanged from its heyday a decade before. In its previous life it had been spartan military quarters and storage, and unlike most of Tepperlin, it had been at the ground level to begin with, so the literal fall of Genome's empire had done it little damage. The atmosphere kept the humans out, and the beastmen flocked to it for some semblance of the life they had before.

Yoko never realized Viral lived here. It was easily the poorest quarter of the city, and he was a high ranking government official. Couldn't he afford to live someplace nicer? Was there some twisted racist rule that decreed all the beastmen had to live over here, or did he segregate himself by choice? Needless to say, it was the part of town she never would've visited by choice, especially at night and bereft of a firearm.

But her tall, shark-toothed companion made her feel a little safer, though his presence alone did not apparently grant her a pass into the ghetto. The suspicious glares, she noticed, were leveled at both of them. Viral ignored them, following a well-memorized path through the winding blocks until they arrived at a building completely indistinct from those around it.

"Don't mind them," he said, swiping a card to open the entrance, "They're just scared."

Yoko rose an eyebrow and kept close to his side. "_They're_ scared...?"

"I'm sure some of them remember your gun." Viral looked down at her and held a second set of doors open for her.

Well, there was that. She fell silent.

He lead her down the decrepit hall and to an elevator whose doors groaned as they opened. "I live on the 6th floor."

The hall the elevator emptied them onto was no better than the last one. Her heels almost caught on the uneven floorboards and she bit down a curse. Viral looked over at her and furrowed his brow, motioning to a nearby door. He passed his card through another reader.

Underwhelming would've been a kind way to describe the apartment behind that door.

It looked like a single tiny room that was more prison cell than home. There was only one small window, and the walls were gray and barren. The furniture consisted of an uncomfortable-looking bed and a stand supporting an old television and an alarm clock. Uniforms and a few pieces of casual wear hung from a rod bridging two cramped walls. Around the corner, she noticed the claustrophobic bathroom didn't even have a shower. No color, no personal relics or touches -- if the bed weren't unmade she'd be hard pressed to believe anyone even lived here.

"They... do pay you to captain the Chouginga, right?" It might have been rude, but she had aching calves and at least four glasses of wine and spiked punch in her system.

"Hm? Of course," Viral didn't seem to understand her implication anyway, until he noticed the incredulous disbelief on her face as she scanned the pitiful quarters. "These... were my quarters before."

"Before what?"

"Before this was Kamina City."

Oh. "Do they really mean that much to you?"

He sat down on his bed, carefully undoing his tie and shoes with his clawed hands. "They are familiar."

There wasn't much room, but her feet couldn't take the pain anymore. She sat down on the end of his bed and kicked off the high heels, looking away from him as she grimaced. Yoko curled and uncurled her toes, rubbing the pantyhose clad ball of her foot with her thumb and sighing in relief.

Then she heard a strange shuffling of clothes.

She looked over her shoulder. Viral freed himself from his shirt and shook his hair free, taking a hanger down to carefully hang the garment back on the rod. The tie went on the same hanger.

And then he unbuckled his pants.

Yoko must have made some kind of choked sound, because he glanced her way as he slid his belt out of its loops. "This suit is itchy. Do you mind if I change?"

She shook her head, dumbly, and tried not to watch him take off his slacks.

Viral folded them neatly, hanging them with care, then resumed sitting. From this angle, she could see all of the scars over his back and lean shoulders, as well as that out of place stripe of stiff fuzz running down his spine.

Or did it just look stiff? Yoko reached out to touch it, curious and judgment-impaired. The beastman's spine stiffened under her fingers. The hair was softer than it looked, growing the longest between his shoulder blades and fading into nothingness around the small of his back in a distinctly inhuman pattern. It reminded her of how male molepigs grew a thick mane down their spine when they matured. She could almost swear he looked a little bigger than the last time she'd seen him this close and undressed...

It occurred to her that she had frozen him in place, and she laughed quietly, scratching the thickest part of the fuzz on his back. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he murmured "It feels strange to have my back touched. I keep expecting an attack."

"Ahhh," Yoko nodded, but didn't remove her hand or stop stroking. "It's hard to get out of that frame of mind, isn't it?"

"Very." There was a slight, breathless rumble to his voice now.

She sidled a little closer to him, enough to hear his slow breathing. "You know I'm not going to attack you, right?"

"I... yes."

"Good." Yoko ended up leaning against his back, setting her hands on his shoulders and her head against his. She was not, she told herself, feeling up the muscles between his neck and shoulders. Her fingertips stopped at the wicked scar that carved an uneven notch his shoulder.

All the scars torn into his torso broke her heart; the worst part was wondering if she was responsible for any of them years ago. They stirred in her an unreasonable surge of affection and sadness for her nonhuman friend, and she quietly embraced him, squeezing his chest from behind. She expected him to stiffen at the contact, and he almost did, at first -- then his huge hands found hers and he resumed the clasp he had been forced to give up hours ago.

Yoko smiled against his back. The contact was nice, and her head felt too heavy to support itself now. She shut her eyes and listened to the purr rattling through him. Yoko had long forgotten whatever she had intended by coming back with him -- whether she had genuinely wanted to see his abode, whether she had wanted to jump him, or whether she had wanted to get away from everyone else. Maybe she just wanted to be close to him again. She got the sensation of someone staring at her, and opened one eye, tilting her head up to offer him a broad smile as he looked back over his shoulder.

He seemed to consider something momentarily, before freeing one of his arms and turning just enough to loop it around her back. Apparently emboldened by her attentions, he clasped her to his side and began nuzzling her scalp, forgetting completely about whatever change of dress he had in mind.

Embracing him lost some of its innocence when she could see more than his back. It reminded her that between those tragic scars was a powerful, nearly naked male body.

It was Yoko's turn to swallow back her embarrassment, averting her eyes with sudden shyness despite her slight inebriation. She tried to focus on his purring, low, deep and hypnotic. He seemed quite content to just sit beside her, nosing through her styled locks, until he suddenly coughed and sneezed. She blinked up at the disruption, and he pulled back, rubbing his nose.

"Your hair smells wrong," Viral frowned.

"Sorry, that's probably the hairspray." Yoko sighed and ran her nails through her manicured bangs self-consciously, wondering if she was glad or disappointed by the interruption.

Then he dipped his head to set his face against her cheek and throat, as if searching for some part of her scent unmarred by chemicals. She tried not to utter any undignified sounds of surprise, but it was a hopeless cause and he pulled back sheepishly after she squeaked.

"Excuse me," he apologized quickly, looking away as well, "I just missed it. The way you smell, I mean."

"Oh?" Preoccupied with trying to steady her breath, Yoko didn't catch the question before it slipped out. "What do I smell like?"

Viral paused at the question, looking thoughtful as he actually considered it. After a moment he shrugged helplessly. "It's human language, so there really aren't any words. It's not just the scent of the things you wear or handle. It comes from your skin, and hair, and I'm not even sure what else..." Lost in thought, he leaned forward to touch her cheek with his nose. "I never thought humans smelled good until now."

Though part of her threatened to shudder at his light, nuzzling touch, Yoko laughed softly. "Are you saying we stink?"

"No," he murmured, a low purr threading into his voice. He closed his eyes and breathed against her temple. "It just wasn't as interesting. "

Viral was close enough that the rough whiskers on his chin tickled at her jaw. He grunted and rubbed his face with his thick wrist, scowling. "I don't know where these came from. I never had them before."

Yoko couldn't help but smile, reaching forward and setting her palm against his scruffy cheek. "Didn't Leeron explain that to you?"

"No," Viral quickly lost his discontent when she stroked his face, leaning into her hand subtly but affectionately. "He explained nothing, just gave me some disc to watch. What does growing hair in strange places have to do with spiral power?"

Yoko shook her head, trying not to be too amused at his expense. "It's all part of becoming a man."

The beastman grumbled, and she comforted him with her fingertips. Tired of sitting upright, Yoko moved deeper into the bed, and he followed her obediently, never breaking contact from her fingers. She settled back comfortably against the few spartan pillows piled against the bed rest, and he followed.

Viral ended up hovering over her torso, until finally giving in to gravity and resting his head on her bosom with surprising brazenness. Aside from her thin dress, little separated their lounging embrace. He must have felt her nervous heartbeats as clearly as she did his rolling purr, but she kept running her fingers down his jaw, then throat, while her other hand ended up cradling his head and fingering his dangling hair.

Her inhuman companion seemed pleased beyond measure to do nothing but weigh her down warmly and bask in the attention. She could see half of a smile, the other half buried against her breast and collarbone, and it was lazy enough to allow a few fangs to slide into view over his bottom lip. It looked just a smidgen goofy, and the beastmen she knew would not allow it under any normal condition.

Then again, she felt like she might have a slightly stupid grin on her own face. Yoko squeezed his head appreciatively and tried not to think too deeply about their strange relationship. The ethics and ramifications of it -- whatever it might become -- still felt muddled. Even this innocuous but intimate lounging was highly suspect. She could only imagine what the rest of the Gurren Brigade would think of this development; Rossiu's reaction at the notion of an interspecies affair, or the immature jokes and jealousy of the group's many bachelors. Leeron was the only one who might genuinely understand being in the thrall of an unorthodox relationship, and he was too busy being a mother hen to her.

Was it really so odd? It wasn't like she was shacking up with one of those anteater guys or a fish-headed soldier. On the surface, he was only a few teeth and claws away from being human. It was really his mannerisms where his bestial side shone through -- his every movement was too smooth and precise, the way his head seemed to remain fixed in one steady position as he walked as if he was locked in a constant stalk, his growling, purring, and the way he didn't know it was ungentlemanly to just plop one's head on a lady's breasts. Worse, it was these things that should have made her leery of him, but the longer she watched him, the more alluring the hints of savageness beneath his stoic, well-spoken front became.

It might have been pure projected fantasy on her part, though. In telling moments, he was a picture of innocent confusion rather than hungry predator, and he seemed more interested in simple, affectionate contact than ravaging her. But then, his naiveté was attractive in its own way...

"What's wrong?"

She looked down at the subject of her ruminations, who, without moving his face, was looking at her curiously. "I... well, nothing, really, just..."

Viral's smile inverted. "Am I being unfriendly?"

"Huh?"

"Am I doing something that a friend shouldn't do?"

"...Kind of."

He frowned deeper and started to lift himself up, but her hand steadied the back of his head, holding it to her chest.

"No, it's okay."

"But--"

"I like it."

He stared at her as if not completely comprehending.

Yoko sighed. The words came to her vaguely inebriated mind easily, but they were hard to say, even though she knew he would not grasp the depth of their meaning. "I... I like you."

Predictably, this did not strike him as much of a revelation and he wrinkled his brow, trying to understand. "I like you as well."

"I mean," she lowered her voice, leaning forward to hide her face in his hair, "more than a friend likes another friend. Remember what I was saying earlier? Like... god, this is ridiculous. I don't know how to explain it. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," Viral protested immediately, "It's good to know. If you like me as more than a friend, doesn't that mean we could _be_ more than friends?"

There was almost a desperate tone to his voice, as if this was some sort of emergency logistical problem whose answer was very likely to be no. Part of her wanted to immediately reassure him, but she knew he deserved the truth.

"I know there's plenty of people who would say it was wrong."

His long frown seemed a bit longer, so she scooped her hands around his face and brought it up closer to her own.

"But... who gives a damn about them? You -- _we_ should do whatever we want."

Viral's lips tugged back into the earlier, cuspid-tipped smile. Then, suddenly, that smile came forward and kissed her. His initiative was slightly shocking; so was the fact he had perfectly retained what she had shown him weeks ago.

He was a good student.


End file.
